The early pioneers and pioneer events of the state of Illinois including personal recollections of the writer; of Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson and Peter Cartwright, together with a brief autobiography of the writer

ILL

XI B R.AR.Y 1

OF THE

UNIVERSITY
OF ILLINOIS

NOIS HISTORICAL

i

LIBRARY

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
URBANA

- - V

THE

EARLY PIONEERS

PIONEER EVENTS

OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS

INCLUDING PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF THE WRITER;

OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, ANDREW JACKSON, AND

PETER CARTWRIGHT, TOGETHER WITH

A BRIEF AUTOBIOGRAPHY
OF THE WRITER.

BY HARVEY LEE ROSS

CHICAGO

EASTMAN BKOTHEKS
1899

DEDICATION.

To the few surviving companions and friends of the
times and scenes of which I have written, and who shared
with me the trials and triumphs of those long past pioneer
years, this book is respectfully dedicated.

HARVEY L. Ross.

I 135156

PREFACE.

The author of this book being now a citizen of the City
of Oakland, State of California, and in the eighty-first
year of his age, having been an early pioneer of the State
of Illinois, having settled there with his parents in tlit;
year 1820, and having lived to witness the rise and progress
and the development of that great State from its infancy,
and having been familiar with many circumstances and
events connected with the early history of that State, and
having been well acquainted with Abraham Lincoln and
Peter Cartwright from theirfirst coming into the State up to
the time of their respective deaths, and having also had the
privilege and the opportunity of learning much about the
early life and adventures of Andrew Jackson, was solicited
by friends who had been informed of these facts to write
for publication- what he knew concerning pioneer times and
those illustrious men.

In compliance to such requests he wrote a number of
articles which were published in the Fulton Democrat at
Lewistown, Fulton County, Illinois, and which were copied
into other newspapers, and since such publication he has
been further solicited by many persons to have those ar-
ticles compiled and published in book form, and they now
here appear substantially as they were copied from those
papers.

HARVEY LEE Ross.
, CALIFORNIA, 1898.

. A few months ago, while on a business trip to
San Francisco, California, I visited my uncle at his home

VI PREFACE.

near by Oakland, arid was there shown many of the com-
munications here appearing. The writer of this memo-
randum note was deeply impressed with the future value
of these writings as representing an accurate and faithful
narration of events of the early days of the now great State
of Illinois,, and as being replete with interesting remem-
brances and unrecorded sayings and doings of three now
historical characters.

I urged upon my uncle the privilege and duty even that
rested with and upon him, to put his newspaper and fugi-
tive writings into final form for book publication, so that
they could pass into the permanent literature of the State
and not perish. It Avas easily seen that the terse and oft-
times quaint statements of facts and events had a peculiar
attractiveness of expression of their own, and the honesty
and candor that permeate every line of his writings doubly
assure a recognition of value.

I found my uncle, although past the four-score years of
the psalmist, hale in body, bright and cheerful, and in as
full possession of his mental strength and vigor as in the
noontime of his life. Indeed, you could say of him as Sir
Walter Scott has so beautifully spoken of one of his char-
acters of fiction, " that the snows of Winter have fallen
upon, but chilled him not." I found to my gratification
that my uncle had also thought of preserving his writings
in book form, at least for his descendants and friends, and
he then gave me permission immediately so to do. I have
taken the liberty of adding a reproduction of his portrait
as a frontispiece, taken in the 80th year of his age.

CHARLES K. OFFIELD.

379 Ashland Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois.
December, 1898.

CONTENTS.

PIONEER TIMES.

CHAPTER 1 1-5

Pioneer journey from New York to Illinois.- The pirogue
of the early settler. Dr. Davison, the " Hermit," the first
settler.

CHAPTER II 6-9

The first murder among early pioneers. The first lawyers.
Some errors in Chapman's History of Fulton County.

CHAPTER III 9-13

Tragical death of Peter White. The Ross ferry. A fight
between pioneers and Indians.

CHAPTER IV H~ Z 7

The ending of the Indian fight. My boyhood ghost for an
Indian scare. My father's trade with the Indians. Early
religious customs of the Indians. A war dance.

CHAPTER V 18-21

An early pioneer dance. Major Newton Walker and his
fiddle. A pioneer wagon ride.

CHAPTER VI -21-25

The first log houses, their construction. Old-fashioned fire-
place; the latch-string; the hominy mortar; the reap-hook
and flail. The first horse-mill of the early settler. " Squaw
corn." My mother's rescue of her kettle from the Indians,
with her fire-shovel.

CHAPTER VII 26-30

The Nimans. First blacksmith shop opened by Jacob Ni-
man. Dr. Charles Newton, a celebrated pioneer physician.
Another error in Chapman's History.

CHAPTER VIII 30-34

Pike County organized. First election in Fulton County held
at my father's house. My father's vote the first cast in Fulton
County. John L. Bogardus, one of Peoria's early settlers.
First marriages in Fulton County. My sister ^Lucinda the
first white child born in this territory.

CHAPTER IX r 35-38

The Wentworths and early Chicago. The Kingstons.
Brother Lewis' visit to Chicago.

Vlll CONTENTS.

CHAPTER X 38-41

The Havana Hotel; its construction. Court held in bar-room
of my hotel, where Abraham Lincoln attended. Block-
houses built.

CHAPTER XI 4 J -45

Arrival of Judge Phelps and William Proctor. Their kind-
ness to the Indians. Judge Phelps' sportsmanship.

CHAPTER XII 45-5

How the fourteen pigeons were killed with a rifle-ball at one
shot. The first pioneer stores. Method of shipping cargo to
St. Louis. The first penitentiary in the state. Christian char-
acter and benevolent deeds of Myron Phelps and William
Proctor.

CHAPTER XIII 5-55

The big snow of 1830-31 and terrible suffering therefrom.
Description of Indian wigwam. Chief Raccoon and my
"good luck."

CHAPTER XIV 55-58

Meeting of brother Lewis and Chief Raccoon in Indian Res-
ervation. Indian traits. Tragedy in Dean's Settlement.

CHAPTER XV 58-62

Captain John and his squaws. The Indians' Paradise. In-
dian traffic in ginseng and wild potatoes, and their extermina-
tion by wild hogs.

CHAPTER XVI 62-66

Appearance of the country when early settlers arrived. Ex-
tensive and beautiful prairies. My experience in hauling
hay. Discovery of coal by Mr. Gardiner. First banking
establishment in Fulton County.

CHAPTER XVII 66-70

John Coleman, a remarkable pioneer. Little Pike's first ride.

CHAPTER XVIII 7i~74

The Westerfield Indian scare. Memorable cyclone of 1835.
Uprising of Canton's women against the saloons of that vil-
lage.

CHAPTER XIX 75-78

Pioneer hangings. Early lawyers.

CHAPTER XX 78-81

Suicide of Edward Stapleford and its awful consequence.

CHAPTER XXI 81-85

The pioneer doctor and his methods of treatment. The In-
dian doctor. How he cured me.

CONTENTS. IX

CHAPTER XXII 85-88

Pioneer schools. First steel pens. How some young ladies
were punished for disobeying rules. First schoolhouse and
its construction.

CHAPTER XXIII 89-92

Letter from Mr. John W. Proctor. My reply thereto.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

CHAPTER 1 93-95

Conditions under which I first became acquainted with Abra-
ham Lincoln.

CHAPTER II 95 -98

Lincoln the grocery clerk. How he qualified himself for sur-
veyor.

CHAPTER III 98-101

Some errors in Herndon's " Life of Lincoln." Anne Rut-
ledge, Lincoln's first sweetheart, and her untimely death.

CHAPTER IV 102-109

Lincoln's second sweetheart, Mary Owens. His letter in re-
gard to the breaking of the engagement. First circus of
pioneer days.

CHAPTER V 1 10-1 1 3

Lincoln's trip on a flatboat to New Orleans. His visit to a
slave market, and his avowed hatred and intention regarding
the institution of slavery.

CHAPTER VI 113-116

The first step to the White House. The " shirt-sleeve court in
the corn field." Mr. Lincoln's refusal of a well-earned fee.

CHAPTER VII 116-120

How Lincoln first earned the sobriquet of " Honest Abe."
His speech wins the debate. Circumstances of his speech in
1858 when running for senator.

CHAPTER VIII 120-122

Some facts in relation to Lincoln's storekeeping. Error in
Herndon's biography. Mr. Lincoln a judge in horse-races.

CHAPTER IX 123-1 27

Some incidents of W. H. Herndon's early life. His further
misstatements in regard to Lincoln.

X CONTENTS.

CHAPTER X 127-130

True story of the Lincoln-Shields duel.

CHAPTER XI 130-133

Mr. Lincoln's religious belief.

CHAPTER XII 134-136

My visit to the grave of the martyred president.

ANDREW JACKSON.

CHAPTER 1 137-152

The Churchwell and Kirkpatrick families' personal acquaint-
anceship with the old hero and statesman. History of the
tragedy in which Andrew Jackson participated. Our visit to
him at the Hermitage. Story of Mrs. Jackson's death. A
little anecdote about Alexander Kirkpatrick.

CHAPTER II . . 1 52-1 66

Brief history of Presidential election of 1828. Some further
incidents concerning Jackson. Our delightful visit to the
South. How my son Frank finally came to partake of south-
ern hospitality at the hands of " Aunt Moody." Death of
Andrew Jackson shortly after our return from the South.

CHAPTER III 166-1 79

Circumstances surrounding Andrew Jackson's marriage.
My visit to the noted battle grounds at New Orleans. Story
of Jackson's great victory. Some high offices to which he had
been appointed. A brief review of his childhood.

PETER CARTWRIGHT.

CHAPTER 1 180-183

Mr. Cartwright's successful efforts to defeat slavery. His
removal to Illinois in 1824.

CHAPTER II 184-186

Mr. Cartwright as a great preacher and a great organizer.
The Jacksonville Ordinance and how Mr. Cartwright assisted
in its enforcement.

CHAPTER III 187-192

The name of Peter Cartwright familiar throughout the state.
His efforts to drive out the Mormons. Grand ovation
tendered him in 1869. His labors at eighty-six years of age.
An incident of his last missionary tour.

CONTENTS. XI

A UTOBIOGRAPHY.

MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY BRIEFLY SKETCHED 193-199

My ancestors, the Ross and Lee families. Their descendants
and some of their deeds. The journey of my family from
New York to Illinois. Some of my early personal adven-
tures. My marriage to Jane R. Kirkpatrick, January ist,
1840. My personal work in the early development of the
country.- The offices held and my work as a delegate to the
National Prohibition convention in the year 1884. The sixty
years of my membership in the Presbyterian church.

pioneer {Ti

LIFE IN FULTON COUNTY SEVENTY TO EIGHTY
YEARS AGO.*

CHAPTER I.

PIONEER JOURNEY FROM NEW YORK TO ILLINOIS. THE

PIROGUE OF THE EARLY SETTLER. DR. DAVISON, THE

"HERMIT," THE FIRST SETTLER.

OAKLAND, CAL., May 18, 1897.
MR. W. T. DAVIDSON:

I received your letter asking me to write for The Fulton
Democrat a series of sketches on the early settlement of
Fulton county. I have received similar requests from
some of my relatives and old friends. There are no peo-
ple in the wide world that I have as great a regard for as
the people of Illinois, and no people for whom I feel the
love and affection that goes from my heart to the pioneer
of Fulton county. It was there that I spent the greater
part of my boyhood and manhood ; it was there where five
of my children was born and raised, and where many of
my relatives now live. There is such a warm place in my
heart for the old settlers of Fulton county that it will be
a pleasure for me to write these sketches. I hope they
will add something to their knowledge and pleasure.

But in going into the early history of the county I will
be compelled to allude very often to some of my relatives
who were prominent as early settlers.

So I will commence with my father, Ossian M. Ross,

* Fulton County then comprising nearly the entire northern half of
Illinois; now divided into fifty counties.

2 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

who with my mother, my brother Lewis, my sister Har-
riet and myself moved from Seneca county, New York,
and settled on the quarter section of land just north of the
present city of Lewistown in April, 1821.

My father was an officer in the war of 1812, and drew a
half section of land; he settled upon one of the quarters,
and on the other quarter he laid out the present city of
Lewistown.

The family left tfew York in the fall of 1819 and went
to Pittsburg, Pa., where he bought a small keel boat on
which he loaded his household goods and other properties,
and went down the Ohio river to its conjunction with the
Mississippi river where Cairo now stands. Here the boat
was frozen up in the ice, and we remained prisoners there
until the next spring. Then we went up the Mississippi
river to where the city of Alton now stands. There we
left the boat and went back into the country about ten
miles, near the town of Edwardsville, where my father
rented a farm. He bought some horses, cows and other
stock, and during the summer of 1821 raised a good crop.
After the crops had been secured we went back to Alton
where the keel boat had been left in charge of the ferry-
man, and loaded upon the boat all our household goods
and family, and started up the river to our future home.
Our hired men drove the wagon and stock across the
country. Before we started into the wilderness of Ful-
ton countymy father went to St. Louis and laid in a supply
of such articles as he thought we would need in our wilder-
ness home. Among the other things was a good supply
of flour and salt, guns and ammunition. He also bought
a surveyor's compass and chain. He went to the sur-
veyor general's office in St. Louis and got a sectional map
of the Military Tract, which embraced all the land lying
between the Mississippi and Illinois rivers and extended
as far north as to include Bureau and Henry counties.
He also got from the surveyor's office a copy of the field
notes of the survey of the Military Tract that was made
about three years before. These field notes were of very

EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS. O

great importance to him and to many other early settlers
in the county, as they enabled them. to locate their lands
by means of well established township and section corners,
all clearly described in these field notes. Without them
it would have been impossible for the people to have ac-
curately located their land.

The little keel boat that we came up the river in was
propelled by a sail when the wind was fair, and at other
times by oars and poles. We were two weeks coming
from Alton to the mouth of Spoon river at Havana, and
the team and stock that were driven across the country ar-
rived a few days later. We ran the boat up Spoon river
to where John Eveland was living. He had settled there
a year before.

My father on examining his map found that his land
was about six miles north of Mr. Eveland' s place. He
took some of his men, and with his compass, chain and
field notes he had no trouble in locating his land. The
family staid on the boat until the team and stock arrived,
and then we all moved onto our land. Father selected
the quarter section north of Lewistown for our home, and
built a log house on the east side of a little creek that ran
through the land and near to a fine, large spring of water.
The location was some sixty rods northeast from Major
Walker's present residence. We lived there four years,
and then built another log house where Major Walker now
lives. W r e staid there until the fall of 1828, and then,
moved to Havana. Three years after my father sold the
farm to Mahlon Winans, my mother's brother, for $1000.

The only white inhabitant in that part of the country
at that time was John Eveland, who lived on the north
side of Spoon river about a mile above where Waterford
now stands, and Dr. W. T. Davison, who lived on the south
side of the river a little higher up. Mr. Eveland had a
large family of nine or ten children, part of them grown.
They had some twenty acres in cultivation, and were en-
gaged in raising stock. They had come into this country
from Calhoun county, making the trip up the Illinois and

4 EABLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

Spoon rivers, partly by land and partly by water. Be-
fore leaving Calhoun county they constructed a large
pirogue (a large canoe). It was hewed out of a large cot-
tonwood tree. The length of the boat was forty feet, and
was about four feet wide. It was run by sail and also by
oars. On this craft they shipped their hogs and part of
their goods. These were the first hogs that were ever
brought to Fulton county and were all of a red color.

This pirogue is entitled to more particular attention,
because it was put to many uses of convenience and util-
ity among the early settlers. It was the first craft used
to carry people across the Illinois river at the mouth of
Spoon river, and it was the craft that the Phelpses used
in shipping their first stock of goods from St. Louis to
Lewistown, and this was the first stock of goods ever
brought to Fulton county. This pirogue was also put in
use by the early settlers to run down Spoon river to the
Illinois river, and thence down the Illinois river to the
mouth of the Sangamon river, and thence up the Sanga-
mon to Sangamontown, where there was a water-mill to
which our people took their grain to be ground into bread-
stuff. A great skill had been used in digging out and
constructing this pirogue. For years it took the place of
the magnificent steamboat and railway trains that later
generations employed.

John Eveland built a mill run by horse power where he
settled on Spoon river which was the first mill built and
operated in the county of Fulton. Some four or five years
after he came to the county he moved and settled five miles
southeast of Canton, and there built another horse mill. '

Dr. Davison, who had settled on the south side of Spoon
river a little west of the Eveland place, lived alone and was
called "The Hermit." I could never learn where he came
from nor when he settled in Fulton county. He had a
good, comfortable cabin and a bearing peach orchard,
which showed he had lived there for several years. He
was doubtless the first settler in this part of Illinois.

The next settlers that settled in that country were two

EARLY PIONEEKS AND EVENTS. 5

brothers named Reuben and Roswell Fenner. They were
both single men, and had come from Calhoun county
upon the Illinois river in canoes and settled on the south
side of Spoon river about two miles above Waterford.
About a year after they settled there, Reuben, the oldest,
was married to a Miss Rowley, whose father was a new-
comer there. These two Fenners were the first persons
ever incarcerated in the Lewistown jail, and it was for
the crime of whipping to death of Reuben's wife, the par-
ticulars of which I will give in my next communication.

In 1822 a great many people began to move into Fulton
county, but most of them came over from Sangamon
county. They had come from eastern and southern states
with the intention of settling in the Military Tract, but
the country was full of Indians indeed they could be
counted by the thousands. The Sangamon river was about
the dividing line between the white settlers and the In-
dians; so these men were afraid to venture over. But
after Mr. Eveland and my father and a few other families
had lived among the Indians a year or two and none of
them had been butchered or scalped the people began to
come to the county in great droves. The first settlements
were made about Lewistown and Waterford.

In my next letter I will give the names of some of the
other pioneers and will also tell what the Fenner boys
whipped Mrs. Reuben Fenner to death for, and how they
broke jail and got away, and of the excitement that it
caused throughout the county.

EARLY PIONEEES AND EVENTS.

CHAPTER II.

THE FIRST MURDER AMONG EARLY PIONEERS. THE FIRST

LAWYERS. SOME ERRORS IN CHAPMAN'S HISTORY OF

FULTON COUNTY.

There had been no circumstance ever occurred before in
Fulton county that caused so much excitement and indig-
nation as the murder of Mrs. Reuben Tenner by her hus-
band and his brother. It was the first murder that took
place in the county after the white people had settled it,
and the Tenners were the first prisoners that ever occupied-
the new log jail.

Reuben and Roswell Tenner were both about six feet
two inches tall, and were of such dark complexion as to
suggest that they were part Indian. It was said by peo-
ple in Calhoun county, where they came from, that there
was Indian blood in them. They settled on the south side
of Spoon river near the site of the celebrated Duncan
Mills, afterwards erected four miles southwest of Lewis-
town. They built a log house and lived together alone.
After they had lived there some eighteen months a man
named Rowley came into the country and settled about a
mile from the Tenners. The Rowleys had a daughter
about twenty-two years old and a son aged ten or twelve.
They had only lived there a few months when Reuben
Tenner and Miss Rowley were married. He took her to
their joint cabin. It turned out that Reuben was willing
that his brother Roswell should share equally with him
in his wife's affections, and that she rebelled with shame
and indignation. Then the trouble commenced. She
fought for her honor as any noble woman would do, but
the poor girl was at the mercy of two heartless giants.

Her mother heard that she was sick in bed and went to
see her, and the girl told her mother how both the brothers
had whipped her and how cruelly they had treated her.

EAKLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS. <

The young wife continued to grow worse, and in a few
days died. When the word came to Lewistown of her
death a great many of the people, both men and women,
went down to the Fenner place to attend the funeral.
When the people assembled they discovered that the Fen-
ners had made a rough box for a coffin and had put her in
it ready for burial. But the men opened the box and took
the body out and examined it. They found many black
stripes on her limbs and bruises on her body, and they de-
cided that she had come to her death from cruel treatment
at the hands of the Fenners. The Fenner s were arrested
and taken to the Lewistown jail. They had been confined
for a couple of months waiting for the circuit court to con-
vene, when one night some of their friends came and as-
sisted them to escape. The jail was built of hewed logs
twelve inches square, and a crowbar had been used to pry
out the end of one of the logs so that they could crawl out.
The next morning an officer went in pursuit of them, but
they had gone to their cabin and loaded their goods into
canoes and gone down the river, and it was the last that
was ever heard of them. It was thought that some of their
friends in Calhoun 'county, where they came from, had
come up and liberated them. If they had not escaped it
is probable that they would have been hung.

The new jail stood about ten rods south of the place
where the old court house was located. At that time
school was being taught in the old log court house by Peter
Wood. I can remember how the school boys used to go
and look through the grates of the jail to see the Fenners
when they were there, and how we used to crawl in and out
of the hole between the logs which they crept through in
escaping. These public buildings in the '20s were very
primitive buildings that would cause much derision in
these days.

Mr. Rowley, the father of the murdered girl, must not
be confounded with the Rowley -who moved into the settle-
ment some years after, and who also had some daughters.
The first Rowley, whose daughter married Fenner, wa?
about fifty years old, and had at some period in his life

8 EABLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

met with a misfortune that had given him a stiff neck.
He could not turn his head in any direction any more than
if his neck had been marble. He was at one time the guest
of my father during a term of the court. While the Fen-
ners were in jail they explained this circumstance by say-
ing that Rowley had at one time been hung by the neck by
a mob for horse-stealing, but they took him down before he
was quite dead ; and that was what had injured his neck.
Soon after the Fenners had escaped from jail, Rowley, with
his wife and son, left this country. I heard that he had made
a solemn vow when the Fenners got away that he would
hunt them down and that their lives should pay the penalty
for the life of his daughter.

Last week my brother Leonard, of Lewistown, sent me"a
copy of Chapman's History of Fulton County. In look-
ing over it I find that the author makes mention of this
Fenner case, and says that Judge Stephen Phelps of Lewis-
town defended him and insisted that according to law and
the Scriptures a man had the right to chastise his wife.
The writer is evidently in error, for the Fenners escaped
and were never tried for their crime ; while Judge Phelps
was a merchant and did not practice law.

The first lawyers that practiced law in Lewistown were
Mr. Caverly of Vandalia, Pew of Springfield, John
Bogardus of Peoria and Hugh R. Coulter of Lewistown.
W. C. Osborn and William Elliott were the next lawyers
who came to Lewistown. Among the first settlers that
came to Lewistown were my father's family, David W.
Barnes, John Totten, John Wolcott, Stephen Chase, John
Jewell, Peter White, A. M. Williams, Lyman Tracy,
David Gallatine, Stephen Dewey, Elijah Wentworth,
John Holcomb, Robert Grant, George Matthews, Thomas
Covell, Peter Cook and William Higgins. Then came my
father's mother, Abigail Ross, and his three brothers,
Joseph, Thomas and John, and his two brothers-in-law,
Simeon TCelsey (father to Capt. William Phelps' first
wife)i and Hugh R. Coulter.

In looking over Chapman's History of Fulton County
I find a great deal of very valuable information in it, and

EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

I think he is entitled to the thanks of the people of Fulton
county for getting up so good a work. But I have found
some errors in it, and some of these I may have occasion
to mention as I proceed with my narrative, for what the
people want are the real facts. A history that does not
contain the truth is no history at all.

There was another remarkable tragedy in the early set-
tlement of the county that caused a great deal of talk and
excitement among the people. It was the death of an old
gentleman, Peter White. He is mentioned in Chapman's
history as being one of the first petit jurymen chosen in
the county. He was murdered, and his son, aged twenty-
four, was arrested and charged with the murder. I will
give the circumstances of this terrible tragedy in my next
letter.

CHAPTER III.

TRAGICAL DEATH OF PETER WHITE. THE ROSS FERRY.

A FIGHT BETWEEN PIONEERS AND INDIANS.

In regard to the tragical death of Peter White, supposed
to have been murdered by his son, I will have to make a
preliminary statement. When my father first came to the
mouth of the Spoon river, in 1821, he determined, if pos-
sible, that he would be the owner of a ferry across the Illi-
nois river at that place as soon as possible. It was forty
miles down the river to the first ferry at Beardstown, and
fifty miles to Peoria, where the next ferry was kept. He
believed that it would be but a few years until there would
be a good deal of travel across the river at Havana, and that
a ferry at that place would be a paying investment. He
was on the alert, and as soon as a license for a ferry could
be procured he got one. It proved to be a good enterprise.
For a good many years the receipts from the ferry
amounted to about $2,000 a year.

Peter White came to Lewistown among the early set-

10 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

tiers. He was fifty years old, was a widower, and had one
son, a large, stout young man twenty-three or twenty-
four years old, and his name also was Peter. They had
worked about Lewistown and the old gentleman had
worked for my father on the farm. He was an eastern man
of good information, and a reliable man to work. My
father made a bargain with both of them to go down to
the river and keep the ferry and to put up a house where
Havana now stands, as there was no house there at that
time. Mv father rigged them out with a horse to haul the

*/ CO

logs together, with tools, and some provisions to live on,
and they started for the river. He also secured from John
Eveland the pirogue alluded to last week to be used until
the ferry boat could be built. The Whites first erected a
little shanty to live in until they could cut the timber and
make the clapboards for the house. So everything ap-
peared to start off all right. After they had been down
about six weeks young Peter came up to Lewistown one
evening a little after dark, and staid at my father's all
night. The next morning my father asked how he and his
father were getting along with the house. " K^ot very
well," was his reply. " Has anything gone wrong ?" asked
my father. " Yes, my father is dead," replied young
Peter. On being asked what was the matter with his
father, he coolly said that he and his father were working
on the house and that his father had slipped and fallen off
the house, and that his head struck a log lying near, and
that it had broken his skull, resulting in his death. My
father asked the boy what he had done with his father's
body. He replied that he had dug a grave and wrapped
him in a blanket, and put him on a sled and hauled him
out and buried him.

The remarkable story that Peter told and the manner
in which he had conducted himself made my father suspi-
cious ; so he went into Lewistown to confer with others as
to what had better be done. It was not long until old
John Eveland came up from Spoon river, and he reported
that Peter had come to his house the day before, had taken
dinner with them, had played ball, had run foot-races, and

EARLY PIONEEBS AND EVENTS. 11

shot at a mark with his boys, but had not said a word about
his father's death. So my father and Mr. Eveland and
three or four others concluded to go down to the river, and
take Peter along, and investigate the matter. He took
them to the grave where he had buried his father. They
got a spade and dug open the grave, took up the body, and
examined it. They found a spot on the side of the head
where the skull had been broken from a blow
by some blunt instrument. They then went to the
house which Peter said his father had fallen from.
There was no logs near the house on which he
could have struck his head, and the house had
only been raised six or seven feet, so that a fall from it was
not likely to kill a man. Some ten feet away was a pile
of logs, with a couple of handspikes lying upon them which
had been used in handling the logs. All of the men were
of the opinion that the old man had come to his death from
a blow struck by Peter with one of those handspikes. They
believed that Peter and his father had quarreled about
something, and that Peter in a passion had struck his
father with a handspike, but with no intention of killing
him ; but that the blow had proved fatal.

As the supposed murder had occurred in Sangamon
county it was decided that the best thing to do was to send
Peter to Springfield, and a couple of men agreed to take
him there and deliver him to the sheriff. The other men
returned to their homes. The next day the two men came
back to Lewistown and reported that Peter had gotten
away from them. It was the general belief that they had
given Peter a good whipping and let him go. But that
was the last that was ever heard of him in that country.

The next parties that my father got to take charge of the
ferry were ]STorman and Ira Scoville, two brothers. They
finished the house that the Whites had commenced to build,
and also built another log house near by. These men staid
two or three years, when Gorman Scoville engaged to run a
keel boat for the Phelpses, and then my father rented the
ferry property to Samuel Mallory and Wm. l^icholls.
They were keeping the ferry and the tavern at the time the

12 EABLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

fight took place between the Indians and the whites as re-
corded in Chapman's history, page 205. The author has
made some mistakes in regard to material facts. He says
the fight took place in 1828 at Mallory's ferry, and that the
whites proved to be the victors. This is all wrong. The
battle took place in 1826, and the ferry was never called
Mallory's ferry, but was Ross' ferry. ]STo man named
Mallory ever kept the ferry, and the Indians were the vic-
tors in the fight. The true history of that fight is as fol-
lows : As I have already stated, Samuel Mallory and his
stepson, Wm. Nicholls, had rented the ferry of my father.
They were both old settlers of Fulton county. Mallory was
the father of Hirah Saunders' wife and the grandfather of
Mrs. Judge H. L. Bryant. A few years later he and ISTich-
olls settled some eight miles south of Canton on the Lewis-
town road.

After they had been at the river a few weeks they re-
ceived by keel boat a barrel of whisky from St. Louis. At
that time all tavern keepers were expected to keep liquor
for the accommodation of their guests. In fact, almost
every merchant in the country kept whisky for sale as free-
ly as any other kind of goods. A party of Indians were
travelling up the Illinois river in their canoes and camped
a half mile above the ferry. They came down to the house
to trade some furs for whisky, as they had been in the habit
of doing with the Scovilles. But Mallory refused to let
them have any whisky. As he was alone they drew their
tomahawks over his head and compelled him to give them
whisky. Win. Nicholls, who had been out working in the
woods, came home, and seeing the situation Mallory was
in, slipped away and got into a canoe and slipped across the
river to where the keel boat was lying. But part of the
boat crew had started off for Lewistown. He hurried on
and overtook them, and told them the situation that Mal-
lory was in. So each one of them cut a stout hickory cane
and went back with him to rescue Mallory. They found
that some twenty-five Indians had Mallory completely un-
der their control. Some of them were pretty drunk and
all were having a jolly time except Mallory. The white

EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS. 13

men ordered the Indians to leave, but they refused to go,
and then the fight commenced, the white men using their
hickory canes on the heads of the Indians. But the Ind-
ians were about four to one, and they succeeded in getting
the canes away from the white men. It was a pretty hot
fight for about half an hour, and the whites would probably
have whipped the Indians, but while they were in the fight
they saw some squaws coming from the canoes with Indian
spears and tomahawks for the use of the Indians. Then
the whites thought it was about time to retreat and get
more help. As they were hurrying to the ferry boat they
discovered Simeon Kelsey and a couple of Indians having
a hard fight near the river, and in attempting to capture
the Indians one of the Indians ran into the river and they
took after him with the ferry boat, and when they would
get near him he would dive under the water and come up a
rod or two behind the boat and would be making for the
shore. The white men would then have to turn their boat
and go after him again ; he would play the same game of
dodging them; they kept up this chase for about half an
hour, when they came upon him where they could see his
head two feet under the water. One of the men ran his
arm down and caught him by the hair, and as he drew his
head over the side of the boat another man drew his knife
and cut the Indian's throat, leaving him to sink in the
river.

The men returned to the keel boat and Wm. N"icholls
started to Lewistown for more men to fight the Indians.
He got there after dark, raised the alarm, and the next
morning fifteen men on horseback started for the battle-
field. I will give the result of their expedition in my next
letter.

14 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

CHAPTER IV.

THE ENDING OF THE INDIAN FIGHT. MY BOYHOOD GHOST

FOR AN INDIAN SCARE. MY FATHER'S TRADE WITH THE

INDIANS. EARLY RELIGIOUS CUSTOMS OF THE INDIANS.

A WAR DANCE.

To continue the story of the Indian fight as described
last week: The company of men raised in Lewistown
numbered fifteen, all on horseback and each with a gun.
Among those in the company were Robert Grant, John
Jewell, Wm. Johnson, John and Wm. Mcholls, Moses
Freeman, Isaac Benson, O. M. Ross and Edward Plude.
Freeman and Benson had come a few weeks before from
the East, and were engaged at the time in putting the coun-
ters and shelves in a store room for my father that stood on
the Harris corner in Lewistown. , Pluclfi was a French-
man, and kept store in a frame house .where Ewan's hard-
ware store now stands.

When the company got to the Illinois river at Havana
1hey were joined by the keel-boat crew that had had the
fight with the Indians the day before, with the exception of
Kelsey, who had been badly used up in the fight and was
not able to go with them. The men all got on the ferry
boat and took as many horses as they could crowd on the
boat, and started across the river. Sonj.e "squaws a little
way down the river saw the men coming ; they ran up the
bank and told the Indians that a great company of white
men were coming with guns. Plude understood the Indian
language, and knew what the squaws said to the Indians.
The Indians instantly took the alarm and started on the
run. Some went to their canoes and poled off up the river,
and some ran to the woods. The men followed the Indians
that ran to the woods until they got into the swamps and
marshes a few miles up the river, and then they had to give
up the chase.

The company came back to Mallory's house where the

EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS. 15

fight had taken place the day before. They found some
pools of blood, and a short distance away they found two
new-made graves, showing that the fight had been a hard
one and that at least two Indians had been killed with clubs
besides the one whose throat was cut on the ferry boat.
They also found that no more than eight or ten gallons of
whisky had been taken from Mallory's barrel, and that his
household goods had not been touched. So that ended the
fight of Ross' ferry for that time.

Mallory and Nicholls kept the ferry for about a year
after that and never had any further trouble with the
Indians. My father then moved to Havana and took
charge of the ferry himself.

The Indian that had his throat cut floated down the river
and landed in some driftwood at the head of an island three
miles below Havana. We had often heard the hunters
tell of the Indian's bones lying in the driftwood there. At
that time was living with my father John Herriford, who
was so long a resident at Bernadotte, and he was wellknown
to many of the pioneers of Fulton county. One Sunday
John w r ent down to the island and brought up the Indian's
skull and jawbone. As soon as I saw them I decided to
have a good deal of sport in frightening the Indians, who I
were very superstitious. I thoroughly cleaned the skull
and jawbone, and fastened them on a jackstaff about four
feet long, sharpened at the lower end to be stuck into the
ground. I then fixed the skull so that I could put into it
a lighted candle. When the scarecrow was set up of a dark
night, with the candle lighted and shining out of the eye-
sockets, ears, nose, and through the gleaming white teeth,
it was certainly the most terrifying object mortal ever be-
held. About a mile above Havana there were eighteen or
twenty wigwams of Indians, and they were in the habit of
coming to town every week to do some trading, and would
frequently stay until after dark before starting home. I
knew the path they traveled and would have the ghost set
up a few rods from their path. When they would discover
my hideous ghost they would start on the run as fast as
their legs could carry them, frightened nearly into convul-

16 EARLY PIONEEBS AND EVENTS.

sions. It made a great commotion among the Indians for
awhile, but my father found out what was going on and
put a sudden stop to all my fun. One day a steamboat
landed at the wharf and I went down to it with my scare-
crow. The pilot paid rne $2 for the outfit to put upon the
bow of his boat at night to scare the natives along the river.

Soon after my father went to Havana he built three
warehouses, one on the east side of the river and two on the
west side. One of these was north of Spoon river, and the
other on the south side. They were built of hewed logs
and were used to store the produce of farmers and the mer-
chandise of the merchants who lived on both sides of the
river. The upper part of the warehouse on the Havana
side of the river he finished off for a store and opened there-
in a stock of goods. The nearest stores to him was at Lew-
istown, twelve miles away on the west, and ISTew Salem,
twenty-five miles east. The Phelpses had established a
trading post, two years before, on Grand Island, nine miles
below Havana; but when my father opened his store they
closed out their business on the island and moved to Yellow-
banks (now Oquawka) on the Mississippi river.

My father had a large trade with the Indians, for they
were scattered all over the country up and down the Illinois
river and both sides of the Spoon river. Their wigwams
could be counted by the hundreds. About the mouth of
Spoon river was a great resort for their Indian ponies.
Hundreds of them would be brought there every fall to
feed on the grass that kept green all winter ; and if there
was a deep snow the Indians would chop down small trees
for their ponies to browse upon until the snow went off.
My father would often sell them goods on a credit of six
months, but would require a recommendation from some
of their chiefs, which made them very punctual to pay their
debts. The Indians were very numerous in all that coun-
try until in 1832 when the Black Hawk war broke out and
they all went west.

These Indians at a certain stage of the moon each fall
held a great religious festival on the island just in front

EAKLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS. 17

of Havana. It was then a very heavily timbered and
picturesque spot. The Indians would congregate there
in hundreds, and their religious rites and ceremonies
would last four days. They had an abundance of good
things to eat, and put in much of the time singing and J
dancing. One of their ceremonies was to burn a live dog
to death. They would select a small white dog and make
his feet fast with four wooden pins which they would
drive in the ground, and then pile wood and brush over
him until he was covered four or five feet deep. They
would set fire to the pile and then gather in a ring about
it. When the dog would commence to burn he would set
up the most terrimc and awful howling that was ever
heard. His cries would ring through the woods for half
a mile. When the dog would commence howling, the
Indians would set up some doleful and dismal dirge and
keep it up as long as the dog kept howling. Then fol-
lowed a war-dance, and that would be the end of the fes-
tival. My brother Leonard was present at one time when
they made a sacrifice of a little dog. He was only about
seven or eight years old, but when the little dog made such
a terrible yelping he wanted to clean out the whole Indian
tribe.

There were many singular customs and tragic events
relating to these Indians that I may detail as I proceed
with my narrative.

18 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

CHAPTEK V.

AN EARLY PIONEER DANCE. MAJOR NEWTON WALKER AND

HIS FIDDLE. A PIONEER WAGON HIDE.

CORRECTION Hon. Inman Blackabj says Mr. Ross is in error in his
statement in Chapter III, that ' Samuel Mallory was the father of
Hirah Saunders' wife, and grandfather to Mrs. H. L. Bryant." The
fact is that Mrs. Hirah Saunders was a step-daughter to Samuel Mallory
a full sister to Wm. K. Nicholls also alluded to by Mr. Ross. Mr.
Blackaby lived with W. K. Nicholls in 1846, and Mr. Mallory and his
wife were living with them at that time. Mr. Blackaby taught school
in that district and boarded with these people part of the time. Mr.
Ross' letters will doubtless go into a future history of Fulton county.
He will join the editor of The Democrat in thanking pioneers for similar
corrections as to any fact.

In The Democrat of June 10 I find the story related by
Major Newton Walker about his fiddling at our Havana
ball sixty years ago. He has always been noted for his
accurate memory, but in this case he has forgotten some of
the incidents. It will interest young people to know about
the pioneer manner of conducting parties. It was Dr.
Price, and not Dr. Allen, who went with me to Lewistown
to secure the services of Major Walker as our fiddler.
Dr. Price then lived in Havana, but afterwards moved to
Lewistown. Dr. Hillburt was also a Havana doctor.
When the Major agreed to go with us we called for him
at Truman Phelps' tavern in a common two-horse wagon.
He was evidently expecting a carriage, but was too polite
to say anything. The only seat was a board laid across
the wagon bed. The Major came out with his violin in
a beautiful case, and the case was wrapped up as carefully
as if it had been a baby. We got on very well until we
came to the bottom road beyond Waterford where heavy
teaming had made deep ruts. The front wheels would
occasionally drop into a deep rut, and down would go our
seat with all three of us sprawling in the wagon bed. But
we finally got to the ball-room, and the dance commenced
much as the Major described it. The man who wanted

EARIA' PIONEEES AND EVENTS.

him to play faster was Dr. Hillburt. He was very portly,
and weighed some 200 pounds. After Hillburt had danced
about half an hour, he pulled off his coat; a little later away
went his vest ; and as he got warmer he kicked off his shoes
and finished the "French four" in his stocking feet. In
regard to the Major's comments on my dancing I have only
to say that he had not lived long enough in Illinois to know
Avhat good Sucker dancing was ! After the dance was over
we took up a collection of about $10 to pay the fiddler, but
Major Walker declined the money, and said he would only
ask us to send him back to Lewistown. I can only say that
if he had run for office he would have gotten every vote in
Havana.

But he is in error in saying that it was the first time we
had ever met. I remember very well when Col. Simms
and Major Walker passed through Havana with their car-
avan from Virginia. They stayed with my father over
night, and the next morning we ferried them over the Illi-
nois river. They had the most splendid traveling outfit I
had ever seen. Their horses were large and fine. They
had several carriages and wagons, and one tremendous four-
horse "prairie schooner." The wagon was about twenty
feet long and eight feet high, and all heavily ironed off in
old Virginia style. The ferryman said that it was the big-
gest wagon that had ever crossed the river.

About two months later I took a carriage and a light pair
of horses to drive my mother over to Lewistown to visit her
brother, Mahlon Winans, who then lived where Major
Walker now lives. Three or four miles out of Lewistown
one of our axletrees was broken. W'e then made our way
afoot to the cabin of Nathaniel Bordwine (still living in
Lewistown), hoping to get a wagon from him, but it was in
Lewistown. I left mother at the cabin and with my horses
went on to Mr. McGeehee's farm, but his wagon was not at
home. Thence I went on to Minard Van Dyke's, then to
Dr. Rice's, and then to George Bennett's, but their wagons
were away or busily employed. Lastly I went to Hiram
Wentworth's place (just east of Lewistown), sure that I
would get a wagon there. When I rode up to the house the

20 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

first thing that struck my attention was a strapping big
negro at work in the yard, and in the lane stood the mighty
"prairie schooner" we had ferried across the river. Major
Walker came to the door and told me that he had bought
the Wentworth place. I told him of my predicament ; but
Col. Simins had driven the carriage into town, and there
was not a wagon on the place except the huge four-horse
one. I could not wait for the carriage, as a storm was

.brewing; so with the negro's help I hitched my two little
horses onto the big wagon. The stiff tongue stuck six feet
out ahead of them, and when I climbed into the wagon the
front end-gate came up to my chin. The big negro said to
me : "Young massa, what y'er goin' to do wid dat big wag-
on ?" I told him that I was going to take a lady a riding. It
tickled him tremendously, and as I drove away he stood
with his mouth spread and nearly in convulsions of laugh-
ter. He had doubtless seen many strange things, but to
take a lady riding in a four-horse wagon was too much for
him.

And so I drove back in state to get mother. Fortunate-
ly, there was a high rail fence at Mr. Bordwine's ; so mother
climbed the high fence and so got into the wagon. [Mrs.
Ross was very fleshy. Ed.] There was a huge chain on
each side of the wagon, and at each hill I had to climb out
and lock the wheels to keep the big wagon from running
over my little horses. We fortunately arrived in Lewis-

town after dark, and escaped the astonished gaze of the
people. But when we got to Uncle Winans' there was no
high fence, and no ladder. It was a profound problem as
to how we would ever get mother out of her chariot. But
finally a common wagon was run up close to the big one,
and by the aid of a high chair we managed to get her safely
to earth. The next day mother sent me back with the big
wagon to Major Walker, and gave me a half dollar to pay
for its use. But I said it was such a big wagon the price
might be more. So she gave me another fifty cents. When
I drove out, there stood that big negro in the same spot, his
mouth wide open, laughing, just as I had left him, giving
me the impression that my joke had paralyzed him the

EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS. 21

night before. But I gave him the dollar to pay Major
Walker. He soon came out and said : " De folks say der
ain't no charge, and you'm pufecly welcome to de wagin."

CHAPTER VI.

THE FIRST LOG HOUSES, THEIR CONSTRUCTION. OLD-FASH-
IONED FIREPLACE ; THE LATCH-STRING ; THE HOMINY
MORTAR; THE EEAP-HOOK AND FLAIL. THE FIRST

HORSE MILL OF THE EARLY SETTLER. "SQUAW CORN."

MY MOTHER'S RESCUE OF HER KETTLE FROM THE
INDIANS, WITH HER FIRE-SHOVEL.

As stated in my first letter, my father moved his family
from New York to Fulton county, Illinois, in 1821, locat-
ing on his farm just north of the city of Lewistown. The
country was at that time a vast wild wilderness, covered by
majestic trees, and Indian wigwams were scattered thickly
all over the wilderness. The only indications that white
men had ever before penetrated the country were the marks
and numbers on occasional trees, the handiwork of a com-
pany of surveyors who had surveyed the land some two or
three years earlier. Our nearest white neighbors were six
miles away on Spoon river ; the next nearest at Rushville,
thirty miles south ; and on the north the nearest white in-
habitants were at Fort Clark, now Peoria, fifty miles dis-
tant.

The first thing to be done on our arrival at our wilder-
ness home, was to build a log house. The younger people
will be interested to know how it was built, and how we
commenced life in the wilderness. The first house my
father built was 20 x 24 feet in size and one story high.
We cut trees of uniform size for the logs, and the ends of
each log were "saddled," or notched, so as to bring the logs
as near together as possible. The cracks between them
were "chinked," or filled with small slabs, and then daubed
with mud inside and out. It made as solid a wall as brick

22 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

and mortar. The gables were made of logs gradually
shortened to the comb. The roof was made of small logs
laid from gable to gable; on these were laid clapboards,
and these were fastened down by logs laid upon each row,
there being no nails. These outside logs were held in
place by laying pieces of timber between them. A wide
chimney-place was cut out of one end of the cabin, and
the chimney built outside of the house. It was built of
rived sticks put up cob-house fashion and plastered inside
and out with clay mortar. The fire-place was made large
enough to take in a four-foot back-log. The floors were

O w

made of puncheons hewed smooth on one side; the doors
of split boards, shaved with a drawing-knife, and hung
with wooden hinges. The door was opened by pulling a
leather latch-string which raised a wooden latch inside the
door. For security at night the latch-string was pulled
in, then there was no way to open the door from the out-
side. After the house was built the first thing that was
done was to break up twenty acres of land, and fence it,
and plant it in corn and vegetables, and in the fall we
put in ten acres of wheat. As soon as the corn got hard
enough to grate, a grater was prepared by taking a piece
of tin and piercing it with a great number of holes, and
then bending it over a piece of short board. With this
simple instrument the corn was rubbed into meal. It
made very good bread and was most excellent for mush.
As soon as the corn got hard enough to pound, a hominy
mortar was made. This was done by burning a hole in
one end of a log or in the top of a stump large enough to
hold a peck of corn. Then we had a wooden pestle which
was suspended by a spring-pole to lessen the labor; and
with this pestle and mortar the grains of corn were
crushed into excellent meal. Another way we had of pre-
paring our corn was by scalding it with strong lye made
from wood ashes until the husk was eaten off by the alkali,
and then washing the corn in clean water until all traces
of the husk and taste of the lye were removed. This was
the old-fashioned hominy, and made a very good substi-

EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

23.

tute for bread. When our wheat was ripe we cut it with
a sickle, or a reap-hook, and then thrashed it out with a
flail or tramped it out with horses, winnowed it with a
sheet, ground it in a horse-mill, bolted it with a hand-bolt
and then baked it in a Dutch oven.

After we had lived in the county about a year, John
Eveland, who lived on Spoon river six miles south of us,
built a horse-mill, which was the first mill built in Fulton
county. I remember very well of riding on a horse be-
hind my brother Lewis when he took a grist of corn to
Eveland's mill to be ground into meal. The fact of rid-
ing twelve miles on a bare-back, hard-trotting horse made
an impression not only on my mind, but also on my legs,
that I did not soon forget, for I was so sore that I could
scarcely walk for two days. So I am not mistaken about
where the first mill was built, although Chapman's His-
tory of Fulton County says the first mill was built in
Fulton county by O. M. Koss at Lewistown. About a
year after that time my father did build a horse-mill,
which was the second mill built in the county. It was
located about half way between my father's house and
Lewistown. The county road from Lewistown to Canton
at that time ran on the east side of Spudaway creek and
a few rods west of where the C. B. & Q. railroad now
runs, and ran by my father's house, located about eighty
rods northeast of Major Walker's present residence. In
about four years my father moved to the spot w 7 here
Major Walker's house now stands and the road (Main
street) was changed to its present location. When my
father built the mill he also erected a blacksmith shop
under the same roof which was carried on by Jacob Ni-
man, who came from Edwardsville, Illinois, with my
father. I shall have more to say of him and his wife
as I proceed with my story.

As I have already said, the country was full of Indians.
One could not travel in any direction without coming
across Indian wigwams. Six or eight families would
congregate together near some creek or spring of water,

24 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

and the squaws would fence three or four acres of land,
and dig up the ground, and plant it in corn and beans.
Those were the principal crops that they raised. The
Indian men seldom did anything but hunt. The squaws
did all the hard work. The corn they raised was of a
dark blue color and the beans a dark red. The kernels
were large and plump, and both corn and beans were of
a very early variety. Our people procured some of the
seed to plant in our garden for early use and raised both
corn and beans for several years. We named the corn
"Squaw Corn." The squaws fenced in their ground by
setting small posts about ten feet apart and tying to them
small poles with hickory bark or strings cut from deer-
skin. They would have only two or three poles to the
panel, for the Indian ponies were the only kind of stock
they had to fear. But when the white people came in
with their cattle and hogs the Indians would either move
further out in the wilderness or would build better fences.
When we came and settled amongst them the Indians were
very friendly, and I think they were pleased to have us
come. When they were kindly treated they showed no
disposition to molest or hurt the white people. They had
a strong propensity to steal and pilfer, and would pick
up any thing they could find and carry it away, so we had
to be constantly on our guard when they were around.
About eighteen months after we moved on our farm an
Indian and two squaws came to our house to trade some
maple sugar for some flour. The Indians at that time
made considerable maple sugar, and we were in the habit
of getting our sugar from them. The men of our family
were all out in the field at work, and there was no one at
home but my mother and old Mrs. Mman, my sister Har-
riet, myself and our little sister Lucinda, who was then
about a year old. While mother was measuring out the
sugar and flour one of the Indian squaws stole her brass
kettle and secreted it under the skirts of her dress. My
mother brought the kettle from New York and prized it
very highly. She had been using it just before the Indians

EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS. 25

came in, and as there had been no other person in the
house, she knew very well that one of them had stolen it.
So she told the Indians that they must give her back her
kettle. They positively denied knowing anything about
it, and were starting to go out of the house when, my
mother seized our long-handled iron shovel, sprang to the
door and closed it, and told them they could not go
until they gave up the kettle. They still denied
having it. My mother then ordered them to take
off their blankets, for they all wore blankets. The
Indian took off his blanket and showed that he did not
have the kettle; then one of the squaws took off her
blanket, and showed that she was innocent; when the
other squaw took off her blanket mother could plainly see
the outline of the kettle under her skirt. Mother pointed
to it and told her to take it out, so the squaw unhooked
the kettle from under her dress and gave it to mother,
Avhen the Indians were permitted to depart. Mother
very well knew that if they got out of the house with the
kettle she would never see it again. Her intention was if
the Indians did not give up the kettle to hold the Indians
there with the big iron shovel until she could send one
of the children to the field for the men. The pioneer
fire-shovel was a very heavy and formidable weapon. The
women had to do all their cooking in a fire-place, as cook-
ing-stoves were then unknown; and the iron shovel they
used to stir up the log fire and to put coals of fire on
their bake oven had an iron handle three feet long and the
shovel part was maybe six inches square, weighing a
pound or so. It would have been a serious thing coming
in contact with an Indian's head. We had many other
little conflicts with the Indians, arising usually out of
their tendency to steal, and I may mention some of them
as I proceed with my narrative.

26 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

CHAPTEK VII.

THE NIMANS. FIRST BLACKSMITH SHOP OPENED BY JACOB

NIMAN. DR. CHARLES NEWTON, A CELEBRATED PIONEER

PHYSICIAN. ANOTHER ERROR IN CHAPMAN'S HISTORY.

When my father moved to Fulton county he brought
with him a man and wife. His name was Jacob ^iman.
He found them at Edwardsville, where we had spent a
year in preparation for coming to our wilderness home.
They had walked all the way from Philadelphia, and
wanted to go to the Military Tract. My father hired
them, and they came with us up the river on the keel boat.
, Niman was a lar^e, stout Dutchman and a blacksmith
I by trade. His wife was an Englishwoman, a good cook,
1 an excellent seamstress, and could cut and make any kind
of a garment from a pair of buckskin breeches to a lady's
fine dress. In addition to these accomplishments she was
a professional midwife. It made her a valuable acquisi-
tion to this new settlement, especially as there was not a
doctor nearer than Springfield, fifty miles distant. Her
services were frequently called for until Dr. Newton came
to the county. JSTiman was a man of rare courage. We
had bought of John Eveland a sow and litter of pigs and
placed them in a rail pen near our house. One night
Niman heard a terrible racket in the pigpen, and seizing
a handspike he ran out to find a huge panther in the pen
trying to kill the pigs. As Niman came up the panther
tried to jump out of the pen, but he struck the animal on
the head with the handspike and killed it.

Mr. Niman opened the first blacksmith shop in Fulton
county. He died about in 1825, and was buried a few
rods east of where the old Presbyterian church stood (now
the little East school house. His bones are evidently ly-
ing in the ground occupied by some of the residents of Ross
Place.) So Chapman's History has made a mistake of

EAKLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS. 2 1

ten years in saying that Eastman Call opened the first
blacksmith shop in Lewistown. .Niman had the first.
The second was opened by Harrison Hilling, who after-
wards went to Canton and opened the first blacksmith shop
in that town. The third shop was opened by A. W.
Williams, and Eastman Call may have come in fourth.

Mrs. jSTiman lived at my father's about five years. She
was a faithful, good woman. She had left a son in Phila-
delphia bound out to learn the shoemaker's trade. He
came to see her in 1821, but claimed to be a maker of fine
boots and shoes, and was afraid the people of Lewistown
would not patronize him very well, so he located in Spring-
field. Before my father went to Havana he deeded to Mrs.
ISTiman a block of lots near where the C. ? B. & Q. depot
now stands in Lewistown, and built her a house on the
ground. The old inhabitants will remember the noble
and kind-hearted old lady, Mrs. Jacob JSTiman ; who was
ever ready and willing to minister to the sick and sorrow-
ful.

My father also brought with him from Edwardsville a
man named Zweltin, who was a shoemaker, and a carpenter
by the name of Enos -both good and reliable men.

One of the notable characters that settled in Lewistown
in the early times was Dr. Charles Newton. He came
from Green county, Illinois, and located in Lewistown in
1825. He was an Eastern man, had been well educated,
and was considered a very good and skillful doctor. He
was the only practicing physician in the county for about
two years. He practiced all over the county where there
was a settlement. He kept no regular office but made his
home at my father's most of the time. He would occasion-
ally take a drinking spree that would last a day or two, but
aside from that he was as perfect a gentleman as any person
could wish to have at their house. My father first met him
at Vandalia and told him that he thought there was a good
opening for a doctor in Lewistown ; so he closed up his bus-
iness and moved to Lewistown. He was a good deal at-
tached to my father, and often said that there was no place
that seemed like home except at our house. A year after

28 EAELY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

we moved to Havana Dr. Newton came down to live with
us. So he was the first doctor at Lewistown and the first
at Havana.

While the doctor was living at our house in Havana my
mother started me off one day to hunt up a girl to do our
housework. I crossed the river and struck off into South
Fulton, and every house I came to I enquired for girls.
Finally I was directed to an old gentleman who lived down
in the edge of Schuyler county, by the name of Louder-
back, who was said to have four girls. I found the place
and told them my business, and the oldest one agreed to go
with me. It was a long trip and we did not get home until
late at night. The doctor had gone to bed, but he called me
to his room and wanted to know what kind of a girl that
was that I had brought home. I told him that she was a
splendid, fine-looking girl. "Do you think," said he, "that
she would make the doctor a good wife ?" I replied that I
thought she would make any man a good wife. So the
doctor courted her, and in about three months they were
married. Havana was at that time in Tazewell county,
and Tremont was the county seat, fifty miles away. So
the doctor had to get his license in Lewistown, and em-
ployed Esq. J. P. Boice of Lewistown to come down and
marry them. As the marriage had to be performed in the
county where the license was issued a crowd of some twen-
ty-five or thirty of us, with Esq. Boice and the bride and
groom, rowed out in the Illinois river in a boat until we were
past the channel, so as to be in Fulton county, and the cere-
mony was performed on theboat. Therewasayoungharness
maker of Havana in the party who had been paying his at-
tentions to Miss Louderback, and in fact was very much
smitten with her, for she was indeed a very handsome and
attractive young lady. When Esq. Boice was repeating
the marriage ceremony, and came to the place that if any
person had any objections why the said parties should not
be bound in the holy bonds of matrimony to then let it be
known or forever after to hold their peace, young Cook,
who was sitting on the gunwale of the boat, rose up and
said that he objected. The 'squire asked him what was

EABLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS. 29

his objections. He replied that he wanted the young lady
himself. Esq. Boice told him that he did not think that
was a legal objection, so went on and performed the mar-
riage ceremony. The ferry boat was then rowed back to
town, and all went to the Havana Hotel, where a wedding
inf air was given by the host and hostess, and the table was
spread with the best that the country could afford. About
three months later the doctor and his wife moved over into
South Fulton where he practiced a couple of years, and
then they moved up near the town of Cuba. Dr. Newton
was appointed surgeon in the Black Hawk war. He was
entitled to two servants, and had the right to draw pay for
them the same as for himself. When the pay roll was be-
ing made out the officers asked the doctor what were the
names of his two servants. He had no servants, but in or-
der to draw pay for them he gave the names of George
Baker and Truman Phelps. On being asked afterwards
why he gave these two names, he said that they had served
him more times than any other men he could think of.
Each one kept a tavern and a bar, and it was at the bar
that they had " served " him so faithfully. Truman
Phelps was a very proud man and was terribly cut up at
being- officially rated as a servant.

Chapman's History says that Truman Phelps kept the
first tavern in Fulton county. This is a mistake. George
Baker kept a tavern in the brick house occupied by Will-
iam Proctor (on the site of the Ewan hardware store), two
years before Truman Phelps came to the country. While
Dr. Newton was still living with my father in Lewistown
word came that the wife of Capt. David Haacke was very
sick and for the doctor to come and see her. He lived
about six miles north of Lewistown. Big Creek had to be
crossed, a'nd at that time the waters were high. The doctor
had been drinking some that day, and father was afraid
for him to go alone; so he sent me along to see that the
doctor got through all right. The doctor found his patient
a very sick woman. He did the best he could for her,
but in a few days she died. Some years after that Capt.
Haacke became the owner of one of the finest farms be-

30 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

tween Canton and Cuba. After the death of Dr. Newton
Capt. Haacke married the doctor's widow, and soon rented
out his farm and moved to Canton. The last time I was
in Canton, some eighteen years ago, I visited Capt. and
Mrs. Haacke at their home, and I think they were the
happiest couple I have ever met. So I think Capt. Haacke
could agree with me in what I told Dr. Newton the even-
ing that I brought the young lady to the hotel, that " she
would make any man a good wife."

CHAPTEK VIII.

PIKE COUNTY ORGANIZED. FIRST ELECTION IN FULTON

COUNTY HELD AT MY FATHER'S HOUSE. MY FATHER'S

VOTE THE FIRST CAST IN FULTON COUNTY. JOHN L.

BOGARDUS, ONE OF PEORIA ? S EARLY SETTLERS. FIRST

MARRIAGES IN FULTON COUNTY. MY SISTER LUCINDA

THE FIRST WHITE CHILD BORN IN THIS TERRITORY.

The first county formed west of the Illinois and east of
the Mississippi, and also embracing all North Illinois, was
Pike, organized in 1821. The county seat was Cole's
Grove, now in Calhoun county. In 1824 it was moved to
Atlas, and in 1833 it went permanently to the fine little
city of Pittsfield. The town of Atlas was laid out on a
bluff three miles from the Mississippi river by the Ross
brothers, who came to Illinois the year before my father
came. They were John, William and Leonard ; they were
enterprising and excellent citizens and owned a good deal
of land in that part of the state. They not only located
the county seat to their liking, but subsequently preempted
about all the local offices in that county. They were dis-
tant relatives of our family, having also come from Scot-
land. My father was so friendly with them that he named
my brother Leonard for the one of that name. Some of
the descendants of these Pike county Rosses now own fine
fruit ranches in Santa Clara Valley, Cal.

EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS. 31

The first probate court held in Pike county was in May,
and the first circuit court in October, 1821, at Cole's Grove.
The first probate judge was Abraham Beck ; the first cir-
cuit judge, John Reynolds ; first representative, Nicholas
Hanson; first senator, Thos. Carlin. Carlin and Rey-
nolds afterwards became, each, governor of Illinois.

The first election ever held near Lewistown was at my
father's house Aug. 5, 1822, while we were still in Pike
county. The judges of the election were Abner Eads,
Stephen Chase and Reuben Fenner, and John Totten was
the clerk. The candidates for governor at that election
were Edward Coles, Joseph Phillips and Thomas C.
Brown. Coles got nineteen ; Phillips, seven ; Brown,
six. For congress, Daniel P. Cook got all the votes, thirty-
three; for representative, Nicholas Hanson got thirteen
votes ; for sheriff, John Shaw eighteen, Leonard Ross
twelve, and B. C. Fenton twenty; for coroner, Daniel
Whigple twelve. James Bacon fifteen.

The first election ever held in Fulton county after its
organization was also held at my father's house about
three-quarters of a mile northeast of the Court House
Square in Lewistown, on April 14, 1823. The boundaries
of the county at that time extended from the Illinois river
to the Mississippi and to the northern line of the state, in-
cluding Galena, Chicago and all that country. The judges
at that election were George Brown, Amos Eveland and
Hazel Putnam; the clerks, Thos. Lee Ross and John
Totten. There were no great national issues at that elec-
tion, but it was run on local issues mainly. It was then
seventy-four years ago just what it has ever been, North
Fulton vs. South Fulton ; and the fight was over the office
of sheriff. The people of North Fulton had nominated
for that office a man named Abner Eads of Peoria, and the
people of South Fulton had nominated my father, Ossian
M. Ross. The voters from the northern part of the county
(all Northern Illinois) came down the Illinois river in
canoes, then up Spoon river to Waterford, and then walked
through the woods seven miles to my father's house where
the election was held, for it was then the only voting pre-

32 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

cinct in all that majestic portion of Illinois now containing
fifty counties, many hundreds of cities and towns, and peo-
ple by the millions ! It was a big battle like some of the
later county seat fights in Fulton county. Eads and
Ross had marshalled all their forces from Rushville on the
south to Fort Clark (Peoria) and Chicago on the north.
The North Fultoiiites had brought whiskey with them.
In those days men could travel and hold elections without
carrying much food, for they could live on game ; but they
could not get on without plenty of whiskey. When the
election was over it was found that thirty-five (35) votes
had been cast, and that Eads had beaten Ross by a majority
of four votes ! But it afterwards was shown that as Eads
came down the river with his sixteen voters he stopped at
" Town Site " (now Pekin) in Sangamon county, and
brought with him two bachelors fraudulent voters and
by this means won the election.

I have in my possession the original poll books of the
elections of 1822 and 1823, just as they came from the
hands of the judges and clerks of those elections. So I
can tell exactly how every vote was cast. The poll book
for 1823 shows that my father cast the first vote that was
ever cast in Fulton county (all Northern Illinois), and it
was cast for Abner Eads, his opponent for the office of
sheriff. My uncle, Hugh R. Coulter, was the first county
and circuit clerk, judge. of probate and county recorder.
My uncle, Thomas Lee Ross, was the first assessor and
county treasurer. My uncle, John N. Ross, was the first
surveyor. In 1824 my father was elected county treasurer
and sheriff and was appointed the first postmaster in big
Fulton county.

In regard to the first settlements and first towns built
up in the territory I have described, Chicago had the start
of the others, and Peoria was the next. But in 1830 they
both fell behind some of the other towns. The towns of
Atlas, Quincy, Columbus, Rushville, Lewistown, Peoria,
Galena and Chicago would not, in 1830, have varied 200
in population, Lewistown being a little ahead of all the
others. From the most reliable accounts to be had, Chi-

EAELY PIONEERS AND EVENTS. 33

cago in 1830 did not contain more than eighteen to twenty
houses, and its population did not exceed 200. It was or-
ganized in 1833, and incorporated as a city in 1837.

One of the first settlers at Ft. Clark (Peoria) was John
L. Bogardus. He went there in 1819. He was a lawyer,
and he and Hugh R. Coulter were the first lawyers in Ful-
ton county. Mr. Bogardus attended the first court terms
held in Lewistown. He w r as a very energetic and success-
ful business man. He owned most of the land that now
constitutes Peoria and laid out the first town lots in that
city. He also kept a ferry across the Illinois river at that
place. One peculiar line of business he engaged in was
the manufacture of fish oil, shipping it by boat to St. Louis.
At the outlet of Peoria Lake in early times vast quantities
of fish would congregate. He had them caught in vast
quantities in seines, would throw them into huge hoppers
holding several wagon loads, and leave them there to be
tried out into oil under the fierce rays of the sun. He had
to employ Creoles and Indians to do this work, as white
men would at once go down with fever and ague, against
which the Indians and Creoles were proof. This fish oil
was about the first produce ever shipped out of the county,
except furs.

The first marriages in this territory, of which there is
any record, were two that took place one at Chicago and
the other at Lewistown on the same day, July 2, 1823,
both then in Fulton county. One was the marriage of
Thomas Lee Ross and Susan ~Nye, who were married in
Lewistown by Hugh R. Coulter, J. P. The other was the
marriage of Alexander Wolcott and Eleanor Kinzie,
(doubtless the daughter of the founder of Chicago), at
Chicago, by John Hamilton, J. P. Both marriage licenses
were issued by Hugh R. Coulter, county clerk, at Lewis-
town. The bride of Thomas Lee Ross was a niece to Mr.
Bogardus above alluded to.

My sister Lucinda was the first white child born in this
immense territory above described. She was born in
Lewistown Oct. 7, 1821. She became the wife of Judge
William Kellogg of Canton, afterwards a member of Con-

34: EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

gress, and now resides at Ashtabula, Ohio. Her daughter,
Mrs. Judge L. W. James, resides in Lewistown.

.For two years after the organization of Fulton county
the people of Chicago had to come to Lewistown for their
marriage licenses, tavern licenses, ferry licenses, etc., and
to do all county business. When a couple wanted to get
married they would generally postpone the matter until
they found another couple of the same mind, or found
some one who wanted a tavern license, and then they would
send a man down to Lewistown to do both jobs and thus
save expense, as it took a man at least two weeks, horse-
back, to make the trip, and he would have to camp out in
the woods most of the nights because there were but few
settlers -along the route.

It was a great relief to Chicago when Peoria county was
organized in 1825, and the county seat located at Peoria.
They could then get their tavern and marriage licenses at
Peoria and save fifty miles of travel. So after 1825
Peoria took Chicago under its wing, and took a kind of
motherly care over the little thing until it got big enough
to take care of itself.*

* MANKATO, KAS., July 12, 1897.

Editor Democrat : I have been reading with deep interest the pioneer
sketches of Mr H. L. Ross, especially the last one relating to Dr. Newton.
A great deal has been said about his drinking, etc., but no one has told
the good story that he was finally converted and baptized while at the
home of my grandfather, Joseph Geyer, near Cuba. My grandparents
took care of him during his sickness and death. I have in my poses-
sion one of his ancient medical books, and also a queer old forceps
with which he pulled the teeth of the pioneers of Fulton county.

GRACE GEYER PURDUM.

The editor must also say that Dr. Newton was buried in the old
cemetery. About three years ago, in companv with the late Dr. Alex.
Hull, the editor was shown the spot where Dr. Newton was buried,
although the grave is not marked. It was Dr. Hull's purpose to urge
the erection of a suitable monument to Fulton county's first physician,
but his death probably frustrated that kindly purpose. It seems to us
that the phvsicians of Fulton county may yet desire to perform this
p'rateful act. Editor Democrat.

EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS. 35

CHAPTER IX.

THE WENTWORTHS AND EARLY CHICAGO. THE KINGSTONS.

BROTHER- LEWIS' VISIT TO CHICAGO.

In early times two families moved from Lewistown to
Chicago one helping to organize the first Methodist
church in that city, and the other the first Presbyterian
church there.

Elijah Wentworth and family came from Maine and lo-
cated first at Vandalia, 111. In 1823 they moved to Eul-
ton county and settled on a piece of land half a mile north-
east of Lewistown adjoining my father's farm. They had
three sons Hiram, Elijah and George; and four daugh-
ters Lucy, Eliza, Sophia and Susan. They were Metho-
dists, and helped organize the first Methodist church in
Fulton county. They were very industrious people. Mr.
W. was a shoemaker, and his sons engaged in farming.
The mother and her daughters carried on an extensive
business in manufacturing buckskin gloves and mittens
and buckeye and straw hats. The buckskins they bought
of the Indians, who killed the deer and dressed the hides
beautifully. The buckeye timber came from the river
bottoms. The men prepared that very tough and elastic
timber by working it into splits that were braided into
very handsome and useful hats. They very much resem-
bled the Panama hats afterwards so generally worn by gen-
tlemen in hot weather. The straw used in making the
straw hats was cut with a sickle or reap-hook about
the time the grain began to form, because it would
toughen better than at any other time. The straw
was bound into sheafs and laid away for future use.
These ladies not only supplied the Lewistown market, but
sold gloves and hate at Springfield, Peoria and other
distant places. In 1827 Mr. Wentworth and family (ex-
cept Hiram and Eliza, who were married), moved to Chi-
cago. Eliza married a Peoria merchant named Clark,

36 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

and one of her daughters became the wife of Edward
Sayre, Fulton county's famous pioneer circuit clerk. The
Wentworths started from Lewistown with two two-horse
wagons. In 184-2 Mr. Wentworth made a trip back into
Fulton county to visit his son Hiram. He stopped over
night with my mother, then living in Canton, and there
told me the story of his moving to Chicago fifteen years be-
fore. He said that on his trip north, after he left Canton
they did not see any white people until they reached
Peoria ; and not one from Peoria to Ottawa and not one
from Ottawa to Chicago. They camped out at night and
slept in their wagons. With their flint-lock guns they
killed all the game they needed, and with the provisions
they carried with them they fared well on their journey.
When they arrived at Chicago they found some fifty
soldiers at Ft. Dearborn and some forty or fifty wigwams
scattered down the Chicago river and some on the lake
shore. There were five of six stores or trading posts, and
their trade was chiefly with the Indians. There were not
(in 1827) more than ten or twelve white families in Chi-
cago. Some of the traders had married squaws and were
raising big families of half-breeds. Mr. Wentworth said
a great deal of the land in Chicago, along the river and
lake, was low and marshy with numberless muskrat houses
scattered about. Mr. Wentworth went back about four
miles from the lake and located on a fair eighty-acre tract
and improved. His daughters here bought buckskins from
the Indians and resumed the manufacture of gloves and
mittens. The improvement of Chicago was very slow
until in 1830, when emigration began at a lively rate. It
was about this time that Mr. Wentworth and family helped
to organize the first Methodist church in that city.

Perhaps some of the readers of The Democrat may re-
member an article that appeared in this paper Feb. 7,
1884. It was an extract from the Northwestern Chris-
tian Advocate, stating that Mrs. Lucy Walker Wentworth
had died in Chicago, aged eighty-four, and that she and her
husband were the founders of Methodism in Chicago, and
that they had formerly lived in Lewistown. The editor

EAELY PIONEERS AND EVENTS. 37

of The Democrat enquired if any of the pioneers remem-
bered the family. I replied at once. It was the same
Wentworth family I am now writing about.

I was never able to learn how much the old gentleman
got for his eighty-acre farm, now almost in the heart of
the city ; but he told me that if he had held to it a little
longer it would have made him independently rich.

The other family, that moved from Lewistown to Chi-
cago, and helped to organize the first Presbyterian church
there, were named Kingston. He was an old Scotch
Presbyterian. He took an active part in church affairs
in Fulton county, and I believe he was a ruling elder in
Lewistown. His son John was about my own age. One
of his daughters taught in the Sabbath school. Mr.
Kingston kept store in a log building that stood on the site
of the late ^Nathan Beadles' fine residence. The cabin
was built by my uncle, Thos. Lee Eoss, who carried on the
hatter's trade in it until he went to the lead mines in 1827,
when Mr. Kingston took the store. I think Mr. K. went
to Chicago about in 1830. In 1832 he came back to
Lewistown to settle up some business and stopped at my
father's house. He said he had come from Chicago to
Ottawa in a stage, and from there to Havana by a steam-
boat. He was very enthusiastic about Chicago's future,
and told my father that good lots could then be bought
there at from $400 to $600 each, and he urged him to go
up and make an investment. But father was then build-
ing the Havana Hotel and had a large amount of busi-
ness on hand, but said he would as soon as possible send
Lewis to look at the place. Lewis was then in the Black
Hawk war. When he was mustered out he went on to
Chicago and spent several days looking over the place.
When he came home his report was not favorable. He
described the land as resembling that about the mouth of
Spoon river and around Thompson's lake; he said Chi-
cago river was about like the Spoon river and that it
overflowed like the Spoon river; that it was a swampy
country, and that his horse had almost mired down

38 EARLY PIONEEKS AND EVENTS.

as he rode out to Mr. Wentworth's; he also told about
the muskrat houses, and said (it was in 1S33) that there
was not a house in Chicago that compared in size or finish
with the Havana Hotel which my father had just com-
pleted. I believe it was the largest house in Illinois at
that time. I shall have more to say about that hotel in a
future letter.

CHAPTER X.

THE HAVANA HOTEL ; ITS CONSTRUCTION. COURT HELD IN

BAR-ROOM OF MY HOTEL, WHERE ABRAHAM LINCOLN
ATTENDED. BLOCK HOUSES BUILT.

I will give a short history of the old Havana Hotel
which my father built in Havana in the early pioneer
times. It will interest the younger generation of today
to know something about the hardships and difficulties the
old pioneers had to encounter, and with what fortitude
and determination they accomplished whatever they un-
dertook to do. It was certainly a very great undertak-
ing to build such a house at that time. There was no pine
lumber to be had nearer than Cincinnati, and the few saw-
mills that were in the country at that time had been erected
on small streams in Fulton county. Therefore most of the
sawed lumber used in the hotel was sawed by hand with
a whip-saw. When the building was completed it was in
all probability the largest building in Illinois and had
cost more money than any other one erected at that time
in the state. The building of the hotel was commenced
late in 1831 and finished in 1833. It combined hotel
and store, and both together was eighty feet long by thirty
feet in width, with upper and lower porches ten feet wide
on each side of the house. The main part of the hotel
was four stories high, and the store part two and a half
stories. The first story was built of a stone wall twelve

EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS. 39

inches thick, and the ground floors were laid with stone.
The balance of the building was of wood. There were
two large chimneys, with three fireplaces opening into
one and four into the other. All the lumber, stone and
lime used in building the house were brought from Fultoii
county. The sills, posts, joists and all the other large tim-
bers were cut and hewed in the woods. The stone was
taken out of a hill in Liverpool township north of Thomp-
son's lake and carried by boat down the lake and by the
Illinois river to Havana. The lime was burned in the
same township and hauled by Zenos Herrington to Ha-
vana in a truck-wheeled wagon with two yoke of oxen.
The truck- wheeled wagon was built without one particle
of iron being used in its construction. The wheels and
every part were wholly of wood. Mr. Herrington had
no need to halloo for the ferry boat when he came to the
river at Havana, for the ferryman could hear the creak-
ing of his wagon half a mile away. The timber used in
building the hotel was white oak, ash, and black and white
walnut. The weatherboarding and shingles were split
out of white oak timber and shaved to a proper thickness
with a drawing knife. The weatherboarding was four
feet long and the shingles twenty-eight inches. The lath
was all split out in the woods, and all the doors, window-
sashes and mouldings had to be made by hand. The
weatherboarding and shingles were made near Lewistown
by Jonathan Cadwallader and his sons Isaac and John.
They then lived in Lewistown. They were Quakers, and
did a good, honest, Quaker job. The carpenter work was
done by Moses, Lewis and Alexander Freeman and Isaac
and Jesse Benson. The mason work was done by Ben-
jamin Hartland, and the painting by Andrew Maxfield.
I mention these names because they were old settlers and
many of their descendants are still living there. About
twenty-five years after the hotel and store were built the
big house was destroyed by fire, and was uninsured.

My father kept the store and ran the hotel up to the time
of his death in 1837. Mvmother and brother Lewis admin-

40 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

istered on his estate. His stock of goods and other per-
sonal property were appraised at a little over $9,000, and
the administrator's sale amounted to a little over $10,000.
The sale was made on twelve months' credit, the purchaser
giving note drawing twelve per cent, interest. After my
father's death the store house and hotel were rented out,
and the family moved to Canton. In 1840, when I had
taken a wife in Canton, I went back to Havana and took
charge of the ferry and of the hotel, and ran them for three
years. It was during this time that the county of Mason
was organized and the county seat located at Havana.
There was no court house at that time, and so court was
held in the bar-room of my hotel, and some of the other
rooms were used for jury-rooms. It was there that such
men as Abraham Lincoln, John J. Harris, E. D. Baker,
H. M. Wead, W. C. Goudy and John P. Boice attended
the courts and took part in the pioneer law suits. I re-
member at one of the court terms the afterwards famous
Gen. Harding had a narrow escape from death. He was
very fond of hunting, and went out one morning to try his
luck for a deer. At that time they were very plenty along
the Illinois river. He did not have to travel far until he
saw a deer, and he drew up his gun and fired . at it. But
instead of killing the deer the breech-pin flew out of his
gun and struck him in the face, making a terrible wound.
It was several days before he could be taken home, and he
carried the scar until the time of his death. Mr. Lincoln
never appeared to care very much about hunting and sel-
dom engaged in that sport. His chief amusement and
delight was in telling anecdotes and stories. In the role
of story-telling I have never known his equal. His power
of mimicry was very great. He could perfectly mimic
the Dutchman, the Irishman, or the negro. In the even-
ing after court had adjourned a great crowd would gather
around Lincoln in the bar-room to listen to Lincoln's
stories, and he seemed to enjoy to the utmost the peals of
laughter that would fill the house. I have heard men say
that they have laughed at some of his stories until they had

EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS. 41

almost shaken their ribs loose. I heard of cases where
men have been suffering for years with some bodily ailment
and could get no relief, but who, having gone two or three
evenings and listened to Lincoln, had laughed all their ail-
ments away and had become well and hearty men, and had
given Lincoln the credit of being their healer.

It was during the time that my father was building the
Havana Hotel that he had a 200-acre farm fenced and
broken up a half mile east of Havana, the rails having been
made on the banks of Spoon river and boated down that
river and across the Illinois.

In 1833, during the Black Hawk war, when so many
people were leaving the Military Tract for fear of the
Indians, he put his whole force of men to work and built a
fort, or block house, at Llavana, to be a refuge for the white
settlers. The effect of this was to stop the ruinous stam-
pede of people away from Pulton county.

I only speak of these things to show what the old pio-
neers could accomplish under difficulties when they had a
mind to work and accomplish something.*

CHAPTER XL

ARRIVAL OF JUDGE STEPHEN PHELPS AND WILLIAM PROC-
TOR. THEIR KINDNESS TO THE INDIANS. JUDGE

PHELPS' SPORTSMANSHIP.

Among the early settlers who came to Fulton county in
the old pioneer times there were none who did more to de-
velop all the avenues of prosperity and to exert an influence

*Gen. L. F. Ross informs us that three block houses instead of
one were built one on each side of the hotel in Havana, and one on the
west bank of the Illinois river and north of Spoon river on the road to
Lewistown. Gen. Ross says the people of Fulton county helped to
build these houses. The mouth of Spoon river was then directly op-
posite Havana, and the ferrry ran from Havana to the upper side of
Spoon river. This large hotel stood on the south side of Market street
on the edge of a high bluff overlooking the river. The bluff has been cut
down and the site of the hotel is now vacant.

42 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

for the good of society than Judge Stephen Phelps and his
son-in-law, William Proctor. They came from the state of
New York and stopped for a year or two in Sangamon
county, and then moved to Fulton county, settling in
Lewistown in 1825. Chapman's History of Fulton
County says they came in 1827, but it is an error. I have
in my possession a record of the fact that cannot be gain-
said. It is the journal book kept by Norman and Ira
Scovill when they ran the ferry over the Illinois river at
Havana for rny father in 1825 and 1826. It was the only
ferry on that river between Peoria and Beardstown, and
all the earlier pioneers in Fulton county came over the
river at Havana. The Scovills kept the ferry on shares,
paying my father one-half of all sums collected on ferriage.
They kept a very accurate journal, with full particulars of
all parties ferried, giving dates, names, articles ferried,
etc. So it is that by referring to this ancient
journal I can tell the exact date and year when
many of the old settlers came to the county. I will copy
a few items from this journal to show the reader how it
was kept:

1825.

Feb. 18. Judge Phelps, ferriage of 2 horses, and

wagon, and 2 footmen $ 0.75

Feb. 23. Judge Phelps, 2 wagons, 4 horses, 2 cows

and 1 footman 1.37^

July 27. William Proctor, horses, wagons and

footman 2.62^

This shows beyond controversy, I think, when Judge
Phelps and Mr. Proctor landed in Fulton county. Then
I find these items for the same year, 1825 : " Feb. 5,
Elijah Putman, ferriage, $2.00;'" "July 7, William
Walters, ferriage, $2.00 ;" " July 22, Keden Putman,
$2.00 ;" " July 26, Jacob Ellis, $2.00 ;" " July 26, Levi
Ellis, $2.50." And so the record goes on during 1825 and
1826. It would seem to be a thoroughly reliable per-
haps the only correct record of the dates on which so many
famed pioneers came to Fulton county.

EARLY P1ONEEBS AND EVENTS.

When Judge Phelps and his family first came to Lewis-
town they lived in a log house north of the present M. E.
church and west of T. F. Stafford's store and residence.
The log house was built by John Jewell. They lived there
some six or eight months and then moved (in 182 5) to the
lots now occupied by the Phelps-Proctor store and Mrs.
Mary Phelps' residence. When Judge Phelps bought that
property there had been erected on it a two-story hewed log
house by John Wolcott, who sold the place to him. Judge
Phelps added a log kitchen and had the whole building
lathed and plastered, and it was the first lathed and plas-
tered house in Lewistown. Judge Phelps also bought a lot
opposite on the west side of Main street and there built a
hewed log house about 18x20 feet for a store house; but
two or three years later they built a frame addition to their
store, and then gave the log store-room exclusively for a
camping place for the Indians who came long distances to
trade w 7 ith them. Sometimes the Indians came forty or
fifty miles with their pack horses laden with deer skins
and furs, and they often would remain three or four days
to do their trading with the Phelpses, who had opened up
the first store in Fulton county. They were very fair and
honorable in all their dealings with the Indians and whites,
and their trade increased rapidly.

Judge Phelps had five sons and one daughter who were
single when they came to Lewistown, his oldest daughter
having married William Proctor. The names of his sons
were Alexis, Myron, Suinner, William and Charles.

Judge Stephen Phelps was a man about five feet ten
inches high, portly built, with light complexion, and
weighed about 200 pounds. His son William at fifty years
of age resembled his father very much. The judge had at
some period of his life received an injury to his back which
hindered him very materially in walking, and was obliged,
as long as I knew him, to walk quite slowly and with a cane.
But aside from that he had excellent health. He was kind
and courteous and sometimes inclined to be a little mirth-
ful. His wife was a tall, slender lady of dark complexion,
weighing about 120 pounds, and a better or kinder-hearted

44 EAKLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

lady I do not believe ever lived upon the face of the earth.
She was good and kind to all, and everybody loved and
honored her. I have often heard it said that a poor man's
child or an Indian papoose never went from Judge Phelps'
door with a hungry stomach as long as his wife lived.

The Phelpses owed a good deal of their success in their
Indian trade to the kind and friendly treatment the In-
dians received at the hands of Judge Phelps and his wife.
There were trading posts at Peoria, but the Indians would
come from the vicinity of that place all the way to Lewis-
town to trade their skins and furs to the Phelpses, for they
had confidence in them, and was afraid to trust the Peoria
traders. The Phelpses erected a press for the purpose of
compressing their pelts and skins into small packages, for
more convenient shipment to St. Louis. This machine was
something after the fashion of a cotton press, but instead of
using screws, wooden wedges were employed to compress
the pelts. The compressed package would be about 2x3
feet in size and would weigh from 100 to 150 pounds.

The judge's youngest son, Charles, was near my own
age, and as boys were rather scarce at that time, we were
a great deal together. We both had our shotguns and were
both very fond of hunting and fishing ; and when Saturday
came around and there was no school, we would strike out
for a hunt, both of us being about ten years of age. When
Judge Phelps came to Lewistown he brought with him a
Dearborn carriage and a large brown horse which they
called "Prince." The judge was fond of driving, and
would often take Charles and myself in his Dearborn and
drive us to where we would find good hunting and fishing.
One of our favorite resorts was the spot where
Spudaway creek empties into Spoon river. There
we would always find plenty of fish and game.
The judge was also fond of hunting, and would
take his gun when he went out, and would
often shoot at game while sitting in his carriage
as he drove through the woods. His horse was very gentle
and would not scare at the firing of the gun. In those times
there were a great many pigeons in the country, and the

EAKLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS. 45

judge delighted very much in killing them. One morning
when I was at the judge's house he had just come in from
a hunt with his horse and Dearborn, and had brought home
fourteen pigeons and told Charles and me that he had killed
all of those pigeons with a rifle ball and at one shot, and he
wanted us boys to guess how he had done it. After we had
made a good many guesses, and had finally given up the
riddle, he then told us how the remarkable feat was accom-
plished.

There are some other things that I would like to men-
tion in regard to the Phelps and Proctor families, but will
continue the story in my next letter. I will also give the
readers a week in which to guess how Judge Phelps killed
fourteen pigeons with one shot of a rifle ball. In my next
I will explain the miracle.

CHAPTER XII.

HOW THE FOURTEEN PIGEONS WERE KILLED WITH A RIFLE-
BALL AT ONE SHOT. THE FIRST PIONEER STORES.

METHOD OF SHIPPING CARGO TO ST. LOUIS. THE FIRST

PENITENTIARY IN THE STATE. CHRISTIAN CHARACTER

AND BENEVOLENT DEEDS OF MYRON PHELPS AND WIL-
LIAM PROCTOR.

In my last I promised to tell how it happened that
Judge Phelps killed fourteen pigeons with a rifle ball at
one shot. It happened as follows: The judge had gone
out one morning with his horse Prince and his Dearborn
carriage for a ride, and had taken his shotgun with him
as was his custom. After firing a few times at squirrels
his shot-bag was empty ; but he found in his pocket a rifle
ball. So he took his knife and cut the ball up into small
fragments of lead and loaded his shotgun with them. He
soon came to a threshing-floor on my father's farm, where
we had been threshing wheat by having the horses trample
it out on the ground. A large flock of pigeons had settled

46 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

down upon the threshing-floor to pick up the grains of
wheat that had mingled with the dirt; and when these
pigeons rose in a cloud to fly away the judge fired at them
on the wing, bringing down fourteen pigeons at one shot
with a rifle ball cut into fragments.

The first year after the Phelpses came to Lewistown they
rented twenty acres of my father's farm and put it in corn.
^Sumner plowed the corn, and my brother Lewis rode the
plow-horse, while I rode the plow-horse for my father's
hired man in the adjoining field. It is a singular fact
that in the first settlement of the county the eastern men
had to have a boy to ride the horse when they plowed corn,
while the southern men would always drive their plow-
horse with a single line.

After the Phelpses had been in business about two years
in Lewistown, Alexis and Sumner established a trading-
post at Yellow Banks (now Oquawka) on the Mississippi
river, and had a large trade with the Indians of Iowa and
Illinois.

William Phelps in his youthful days was very fond of
the chase. He kept a pack of hounds that were well
trained, and during the summer months he would start
out in the morning, as soon as it was daylight, with his
horse and hounds and a tin horn for a fox-hunt. The
deep baying of his dogs and the blare of his horn could in
\ those times be heard for miles around the village. There
were a great many wolves, foxes and wildcats in the coun-
try, and he would occasionally start up a lynx or a panther.
These animals were very annoying to the farmers, as they
would kill a great deal of the stock and carry off the poul-
try, and William and his hounds contributed very materi-
ally to their extermination. The first enterprise that
William engaged in after leaving home was to set up an
Indian trading-post on Grand Island, ten miles below Ha-
vana in the Illinois river. After carrying on this trade
about one year he was married to Caroline Kelsey and
struck out for the wilds of Iowa where he was engaged
for many years in trading with the Indians. He was sub-

EAELY PIONEERS AND EVENTS. 47

sequently engaged in steamboating on the Mississippi
river for many years.

The next store that was opened in Lewistown was that
of Edward Plude, a Frenchman, and Patrick Hart, an
Irishman. They built a frame storehouse on the lot
where William Proctor lived for many years, on Main
street. They kept the store for about two years, and then
my father bought their goods and moved them to a store
he had built on the Edwin Harris corner, south of the
court house. After my father bought their goods, Plude
clerked for my father, while Hart clerked for the Phelpses.

A man named Taylor started the next store. He came
from Philadelphia. He brought on a large stock of
Indian goods and also brought with him from St. Louis
two Frenchmen who were accomplished Indian interpre-
ters, as clerks. Mr. Taylor's ambition was to seize upon
the splendid Indian trade secured by the Phelpses. He
sent his French clerks out among the Indians to secure
their trade, but made a great failure of it. The Phelpses
had dealt so honorably with the Indians and white people
that no power could break the confidence that was reposed
in them, and they held their magnificent Indian trade
until the Indians were driven out of the country. Mr.
Taylor was a very bright and enterprising man, and while
he was in Lewistown he was married to Miss Ruth Cad-
wallader, a daughter of Jonathan Cadwallader. who then
lived in Lewistown. She was a grand, noble and beauti-
ful young Quaker lady. I happened to be going to school
in Lewistown at the time and boarded with Mr. Taylor.

The Phelpses had a keel boat built for their own tracfcT
to St. Louis which was run by ISTorman Scovill as its cap-
tain. I was present at one time when they were loading
this boat at Thompson's lake. The cargo consisted of
barels of pork and honey, packages of deerskins and furs,
barrels of dried venison, hams, beeswax and tallow, sacks
of pecans, hickory nuts, ginseng and feathers, and dry
hides. In an ordinary stage of water it took about four
days to run a keel boat to St. Louis, by poles, oars and

4:8 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

I sails, and from twenty to twenty-five days to return. 1
had gone to St. Louis one time with my father with a
drove of horses, and came back with Xorman Scovill on
his keel boat. The river was quite high, and we had to
do a great deal of "cordeling" and ''bushwhacking,"* and
it took us twenty-five days to come to Havana. I remem-
ber that we stopped at Alton as we came up the river, and
all hands went up town to see the new penitentiary that
had just been built. There were only two prisoners in
the penitentiary, so we had the privilege of seeing the
first prisoners ever sent to a penitentiary in the State of
Illinois. Before that time the penalty for the commis-
sion of a crime was whipping on the bare back.

Mr. Proctor came to the county in 1825, some four,
months after the Phelpses had come, and lived in a house
near to where the Phelpses had stopped, just north of
present Methodist church. He lived there a short time
while building a two-story log house on the hill near the
site of his tannery (the site of the present residence of
T. B. Harben). He carried on the tan-yard for several
years, and then engaged in the mercantile business, and
by fair and honorable dealing he soon built up an exten-
sive trade.

There have been but few, if any, of the early settlers
of Fulton county that have done as much to advance the
true interests and prosperity of the country as Myron
Phelps and William Proctor. Whenever a college,
church, railroad, or factory, or any public improvement
was wanting, they would generally head the list with the
largest contribution. When the first railroad was built
through Fulton county Myron Phelps gave more for its
construction than any other citizen. I happened to be
one of the directors and also treasurer of the road for
two years while it was being built, and therefore know

* This "cordeling" and "bushwhacking" was the use of ropes by
which the boat was pulled by men walking along the shore, or by
ropes tied to trees by the use of skiffs the boat being pulled from tree
to tree.

EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS. 49

the facts that I am stating. Then the grand and noble
Christian characters of these men were a blessing not only
to the church of which they were honored members, but
to the whole community where they lived. I remember
some of the circumstances that attended the conversion
of Myron Phelps. I was then living in Canton, and Rev.
Robert Stewart was pastor of the Presbyterian church at
that place. The Methodist brethren had been wonder-
fully blest in some of the campmeetings they had been
holding, so the Rev. Mr. Stewart and the officers of his
church borrowed the Methodist camp ground and all its
appurtenances, and concluded they would try it. So
they sent off to Springfield and got Rev. John Hale, the
pastor of the First Presbyterian church of that place,
and also sent to Quincy and got the Rev. Dr. David Xei-
son of that place to come and help run the meeting.
They were two of the strongest and most powerful
preachers in the state. The campmeeting lasted for
eight days, and there were 150 or 200 conversions. A
great many Lewistown people attended the campmeeting.
My mother had tent on the ground, and I remember that
old Dr. Rice and William Proctor were there during the
entire eight days, and took a very active part in the meet-
ings. When the meeting closed Mr. Proctor took Dr.
ISTelson home with him and he held several meetings at
Lewistown. The spirit and influence of that campmeet-
ing seemed to pervade all Fulton county. Dr. Nelson
visited Myron Phelps at his home, and it was through
his mighty influence that he was converted and became
a member of the Presbyterian church. I often heard it
remarked that when Myron Phelps was converted that
"he was converted soul, body, pocketbook and all," for he
was always very liberal and benevolent in giving to all
worthy objects. I have understood that Myron Phelps
was in the habit of giving $1,000 and Mr. Proctor $500
every year for missionary purposes, besides other munifi-
cent gifts. I again recall the time when at Vermont a
few of us were struggling to build a small church how Mr.

50 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

Proctor came to our rescue and gave us $100 to buy the
lot on which that Presbyterian church still stands.

These men carried their religion with them in all their
business transactions. Their influence was felt for good
all through this pioneer country. In the heavenly world
alone will be revealed the good they accomplished. I
have been informed that Myron Phelps was in the habit
of always closing his store during the hour of Wednesday
evening prayer meeting so that his hands could attend the
meeting, and if there were any customers in the store at
the time they were invited to go along. I am also told
that he never went to the polls to vote that he did not take
off his hat and cast his ballot with as much conscientious
solemnity as he would perform any other religious duty.

CHAPTEK XIII.

THE BIG SNOW OF 1830-31 AND TERRIBLE SUFFERING

THEREFROM. DESCRIPTION OF INDIAN WIGWAM.

CHIEF RACCOON AND MY "GOOD LUCK."

One of the most remarkable and startling events that
ever took place in the early history of Fulton county and
Illinois was the big snow that fell in the winter of 1830-
'31. Perhaps no event has ever happened in the history of
this western country since its settlement by white men that
has caused so much suffering among the people and animals
as did the "deep snow."

The old settlers will remember many things about it,
but another generation has come on the stage of action since
then, and they may be interested in the history of that
event and some of the circumstances attending that dread-
ful, long, cold winter.

The snow commenced falling the latter part of December
and continued off and on for about a. month, and when it
ceased falling the snow in the timber, where it did not
drift, was about three feet and six inches on the level, and

EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS. 51

in the prairies along the fences and in the hollows, where
it had drifted, it was ten arid fifteen feet deep. The snow
lay on the ground about three months and during that time
the weather was intensely cold. During many days the
mercury ran from ten to twenty degrees below zero. Be-
fore that time the winters had been so mild and with so lit-
tle snow that stock seldom had to be fed more than from
four to six weeks during the entire winter, and wild hogs
kept in fairly good order from off the mast (acorns). Dur-
ing the whole winter the farmers had been in the habit of
gathering only what corn they needed to feed their stock in
the fore part of the winter, and the consequence was that
the greater part of the crop was in the field when the deep
snow came. The farmers had made no provisions for such
a catastrophe and there was great suffering among the peo-
ple. A great deal of their stock died, while the wild hogs,
deer and other wild animals in the forests were nearly
swept out of existence. The Indians came in great numbers
from the high lands and settled on the Illinois and Spoon
river bottoms. They brought with them their droves of
horses and ponies, and kept them from starving by chop-
ping down small trees of soft wood, such as basswood, cot-
toriwood, elm and soft maple. Their ponies would not
only browse upon the limbs and bark of the trees, but would
frequently eat up the whole tree. So the Indians got their
ponies through the winter with very little loss.

The winter of the deep snow was in many ways favorable
to the Indians. The snow storm drove great herds of deer
from the prairies and hill country to the river bottoms, and
the Indians killed great numbers of them. The deep snow
was but little impediment to the Indians in travelling, for
they had snow shoes with which they could walk or run
over the snow as well, almost, as the whites could go over
the bare ground. The snow shoe was made by bending a
hickory stick in very much the shape of an ox-yoke ; the bot-
tom of the bow would be covered with strips of deer skin to
be tied firmly onto the ankles and feet. These shoes were
about as heavy as heavy boots. When an Indian in snow
shoes got after a deer that had to travel in snow three and

52 EAKLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

one-half feet deep, the Indian was pretty sure to get the
deer and cut his throat. The snow was also a great ad-
vantage to the Indians in hunting the otter, mink and
muskrat. These animals would come out of their dens and
leave their tracks or trails in the snow, and the Indians
could easily track them, when they could be caught. And
it was the same with the fox and raccoon ; they could be
tracked to their holes in the hills or in trees, when the In-
dians would spear them out of their holes.

I have heard my father say that he had a bigger trade
with the Indians than in any winter before or after. I
have no doubt that the same was true of the Phelpses.

One of the prominent camping places selected by the In-
dians during that winter was on Spoon river about two miles
below old Waterf ord. They had there erected some twenty
wigwams. The young readers of The Democrat may be
interested in learning how these wigwams were built. A
common sized wigwam for a family of eight or ten persons
would be about 12x16 feet in size. Small saplings would
be cut and set firmly in the ground, big ends down, in rows
three feet apart, all round the plat (12x16 feet) to be en-
closed. Then the limber tops of the poles would be brought
together and fastened with hickory wyths or strips of
leather. Then small poles would be tied lengthwise to the
saplings, making a cross-barred and solid frame. The
whole would then be covered with a heavy matting that
had been woven by the squaws from the coarse swamp grass
yet to be found on the bottom lands. This completed the
wigwam, and it had the shape of a hay stack. An opening
was left as a door way and this was protected by a blanket.
A pit 2x3 feet in size and eight or ten inches deep would
be dug in the center under the wigwam for a fire-place, and
there was an opening at the top for the smoke to pass
through. The Indians were quite comfortable in these
wigwams, with their blankets and furs, in the coldest
weather. They never used bedsteads, tables or chairs.
They usually sat on packages of skins or sacks of feathers.
The whole family usually took their meals out of a wooden

EARLY PIONEEES AND EVENTS. 53

tray, using knives and wooden spoons, but no forks. In
cold weather they kept their fires burning night and day.

Among the Indians that camped at this place was a chief
named Osopin (in English, Raccoon). He had traded
with my father when he kept store in Lewistown, and also
after he started a store in Havana. He would often buy
goods on credit, and was always punctual to pay for them
at the time agreed upon. My father entered his name on
the ledger, "Raccoon Osopin," which was both his English
and Indian names. He was. a good friend to my father,
and brought many Indians to trade with him. My father
often made Raccoon handsome presents. I remember that
he once brought him from St. Louis a tomahawk with the
handle striped off in red, white and blue, with an iron pipe
on the hammer part of the tomahawk, there being an open-
ing through the handle, so the chief could use his beautiful
tomahawk as a pipe in which to smoke his tobacco. Rac-
coon was greatly pleased with this princely gift.

I often helped my father in his Havana store while he
was trading with the Indians, and so became very well ac-
quainted with Raccoon and his boys. They took quite a
liking to me and had often asked me to go to their wigwam
and take a hunt with them. My father had brought a
small Indian pony for me to ride when I went hunting. So
when the deep snow had been sufficiently beaten down into
a road between Lewistown and Havana, I started one day
with my pony and gun for the Indian camp on Spoon river.
When I got there I found that the young Indians had all
gone hunting, and only Raccoon was left to take care of
the wigwam. While I was warming at the fire he pro-
duced a buckskin roll of sinews that had been taken out of
the legs of deer. When an Indian kills a deer he always
takes the sinews out of its legs to use in place of thread in
sewing their moccasins, mittens, etc. ; and they also use
these sinews about their persons as charms, or for "good
luck," as they call it. So Raccoon tied a bit of sinew in the
buttonhole of my vest. He said it would insure me good
luck, and that I would become a brave hunter. After stay-
ing a couple of hours I started back home on my pony. I

54 EARLY PIONEEES AND EVENTS.

had not gone over a mile when I saw a large deer standing
on the ice in a little lake near the road. He was browsing
from bushes, and did not see me. There was a large tree
about eighty yards from the deer. I tied my pony to a
tree and with my gun in hand crept silently toward the
tree, keeping it between me and the deer. Then I rested
my gun against the tree, took good aim and fired. The
deer fell, but immediately jumped up and commenced to
flounder around in the deep snow. I saw that I had only
wounded him, and was terribly afraid that he would get
away. I never thought of reloading my gun and shooting
him again, as I should have done, but left my gun at the
tree, and with my knife in my hand ran as fast as I could
to the deer. It was jumping around in the deep snow, and
I slipped up behind it and cut its ham-strings, which stop-
ped its jumping. It then settled down in the snow, and I
got it by the ears and cut its throat. It was
soon dead. I little realized the great danger I
had encountered in attacking a wounded deer, but
found out, after I got older, from talks with old
deer hunters, that a wounded deer was the most dangerous
animal that runs in the woods. I was then but a little past
thirteen years old, and small of my age, and if the deer had
turned upon me he would have stamped me to death. The
next problem I had to solve was how to get my deer home,
for if I left him there the wolves would eat him before
morning. I was three miles from home, about north of
what is called California Bend in Spoon river. It was
about February 1st, and the weather was terribly cold.
But I took my pony and gun to where the deer was lying.
I took my saddle girth and placed it around the pony's
breast instead of under his belly, and with the halter strap
hitched the deer to the stirrups. It made a very good
harness. I then got on my pony with my gun and started
for Havana. It was a hard pull for my little pony to get
the deer out of the deep snow, but when we got onto the
beaten track it was easy sledding. I crossed the Illinois
river on the ice and got home a little after dark. It was
the first deer I ever killed, and I was very proud of my

EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS. 55

success. When Raccoon came in, a few days later, and I
told him of my success, he was much pleased ; he patted me
on the back and said I would be a great hunter. Then he
pointed to the bit of sinew he had tied in my button-hole,
saying it was the cause of my good luck.

The Pottowatomie Indians that lived about Lewistown
and Havana were soon moved to an Indian reservation in
Kansas by the government. During Johnson's adminis-
tration, thirty years later, word was sent to Washington
that some of those Indians were in a starving condition.
My brother Lewis, then a member of Congress, was ap-
pointed with two other members of Congress to go to the
reservation to investigate the matter. Arrived there he
found a good many Indians he had known in Fulton coun-
ty, and among them our old friend Raccoon. There was
great rejoicing among those Indians when they found out
who my brother was, and they had a doleful story to tell
him of the hard treatment they had received after they had
been driven from their good hunting grounds on Spoon
river.

I shall have more to say of these Indians in a future
letter.

CHAPTER XIV.

MEETING OF BROTHER LEWIS AND CHIEF RACCOON IN IN-
DIAN RESERVATION. INDIAN TRAITS. TRAGEDY IN

DEAN'S SETTLEMENT.

In my last letter I spoke of the visit made by a Con-
gressional committee, including my brother Lewis, to the
Indian reservation in Kansas, where it was reported that
great suffering existed among the Indians. As there
'were no railroads, these members of Congress had to make
the trip on horseback. They passed through many Indian
reservations and got all the information they could from
the Indians, from their agents, and from missionaries

56 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

and school teachers who located among them. They
found that some of the tribes were in a most deplorable
condition and on the verge of starvation. The Pottowat-
omie Indians that had been driven from the Lewistown
and Havana country had been placed upon an Indian
reservation in Kansas and were drawing a small annuity
from the government, as an alleged compensation for the
lands that had been taken from them in Fulton county,
but it was not half enough for their support. They had
undertaken to farm the land in Kansas, but the locusts,
grasshoppers and hot winds of that country had ruined
their crops. To make it still worse for them, the govern-
ment had taken away their guns, so they had to hunt game
with their bows and arrows.

As I have said, my brother Lewis found many Indians
that he had formerly known at Lewistown and Havana,
and who had for years traded with my father and the
Phelpses. These Indians were wild with delight to meet
him, and could only express their joy by shaking his
hands and hugging him. He had there met the old chief,
Raccoon, who was delighted to see him. Raccoon in-
quired about his father and Judge Phelps, and when
Lewis told him that they were both dead the tears rolled
down the swarthy face of the old chief, and he said,
"They Avere good men to the Indians." The missionaries
at the agency told Lewis that Raccoon had been converted
and had joined the church with several of his family,
and that he took an active part in carrying on the schools
and in missionary work among the Indians.

Judge Phelps and my father had always been good
friends to the Indians. They believed that it was the
safest and best policy to treat them as friends, although
they would sometimes lose a little by their stealing, for
it was as natural for the Indians to steal as it was for the
smoke to go upwards. But all that they would steal
amounted to but very little. In the early settlement of the
county there came a good many settlers from the southern
states, many of whom had had relatives and friends massa-
cred bv the Indians of the South, and these southerners

EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS. 57

as a rule looked upon these Indians as their natural enemy
that they had no rights that a white man was bound to
respect. They believed that "the only good Indian was
a dead Indian/' and they would often get into trouble
with them. The hogs of the white men would run in the
woods, and the Indian dogs would chase and worry them ;
and then the white men would shoot their dogs, and then
the Indians would shoot their dogs and sometimes their
hogs to get even with them. Sometimes a white man
would have something stolen from his place, and the
Indians would always be accused of the theft; and then
the first Indians they could find would be most cruelly
whipped with hickory poles, when in all probability the
Indians knew nothing about the stealing. The outraged
Indians would then go to Judge Phelps or my father and
tell them how they had been abused, and would always
get their sympathy when they thought they were wrong-
fully treated. These men would often remonstrate very
seriously with these settlers for their inhuman treatment
of these Indians.

I can remember some of the circumstances of a tragedy
that took place in the southeast part of the county in what
was called " Dean's Settlement." Among the settlers
there was a man named William Richardson. He was a
large, stout man, and was a bitter enemy to the Indians.
He would often catch them and cruelly whip them with-
out just cause, and would kill their dogs whenever he
came across them. One day when he was out in the
woods hunting he came across one of his hogs that had
just been killed in the woods. He told some of his
neighbors he knew the Indians had killed his hog, and he
was going to have his revenge. A day or two later a dead
Indian was found propped up, sitting on the dead hog.
There were a good many Indians at the time living on
Grand Island in the Illinios river, opposite the Dean
Settlement, and they were informed about the dead
Indian and came arid took him away and buried him.
They were terribly incensed about the murder and

58 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

claimed that the Indian was out hunting when he was
shot down in cold blood and that he had never killed a
hog, and had never done the white people an injury.
There was little doubt among the settlers that Richardson
had brutally shot down the Indian from ambush and had
brought his body and placed it on the hog to strike terror
to them; that if they killed hogs their lives would have
to pay the penalty. The Indians would have in all prob-
ability taken vengeance on Richardson but for another
tragedy which soon took place.

Richardson had a neighbor named Bassett who lived
about a mile away who believed that Richardson was too
friendly with his wife. He went from home one time
and came back unexpectedly very early in the morning;
and as he came near his home he saw Richardson coming
out and starting for his home. Bassett went into his
house, took down his rifle, and took a near cut across the
woods for Richardson's house, and got ahead of him and
secreted himself behind a tree, and as Richardson came
along he shot him dead in his tracks.

CHAPTER XV.

CAPTAIN JOHN AND HIS SQUAWS. THE INDIANS^ PARADISE.

INDIAN TRAFFIC IN GINSENG AND WILD POTATOES,,
AND THEIR EXTERMINATION BY WILD HOGS.

I will give a short sketch of one of the most remarkable
Indian families that ever lived in Fulton county. I am
sure no other family of Indians ever caused so much
gossip and so much bitter denunciation from the female
part of the community, both white women and squaws,
as did the conduct of an Indian chief called "Captain
John." He was a large, fine-looking Indian about six
feet, four inches tall, and was one of the most prominent
chiefs in the Pottowatomie tribe. It was told by some
of the other Indians who had known him before he came

EAKLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS. 59

to Fulton county that he had taken the side of the British
against the Americans in the war of 1812, and that it was
while he was amongst the British soldiers that he obtained
the name of "Captain John." lie and his squaw had
learned to speak some words in the English language.
The first we knew about them they had their wigwam on
Big Creek near the road that ran from Lewistown to
Totten's Prairie (now Smithfield). Their wigwam was
about three miles northwest of Lewistown close by the
dismantled little village of Milton. It appeared from
what the Indians told that "Captain John" had at one
time became jealous of his squaw, and in his wrath, while
under the influence of bad whisky, had bitten off her
nose. She wore a buckskin patch over it, and it gave
her a most hideous appearance. To add insult to injury,
"Captain John" took to himself two young wives. They
were handsome young squaws about twenty-two and
twenty-four years old, and he took a god deal of pride
in dressing them up in the most gay and gorgeous style.
~No squaws in all that part of the country were able to
dress as fine as "Captain John's" young squaws. They
had long black hair which they braided and left to hang
gracefully over their shoulders, with the ends tied in bows
of gay ribbon. They wore large silver earrings, and four
or five strands of large glass beads around their necks.
Their dresses were of a gay color with a row of silver
brooches down the front. Their skirts were of the finest
quality of blue cloth. They wore bands of silver clasped
on their wrists, and their fingers were decorated with
many rings. Their moccasins were ornamented with
beads and fine needlework. "Captain John" appeared to
be very proud of his young squaws. But the lot of the
old squaw was a hard and bitter one. She went poorly
dressed, much below the average of other squaws that
came to town. "Captain John" and his three squaws were
in the habit of coming to town about once every week to
trade at Phelps' store, and they always passed by nrv
father's house. "Captain John" always appeared at the

60 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

head of the procession, a fine and stately figure; next
came his two young squaws in all their finery, and the
poor old squaw brought up the rear with a package of
peltry strapped across her shoulders and bending pitifully
under its weight. She was compelled to do all the hard
work. The white women and some of the squaws were
so indignant at "Captain John" and his two young squaws
for the way they treated the old squaw that they would
have liked very much to have mobbed all three of them,
but "Captain John" was a big chief, and they were
afraid of him. But as the country began to settle
up with white men the story became current among them
that "Captain John" had been identified with the British
army, and fought against the Americans in the war of
1812, and also that the British officers had paid a bounty
to the Indians for American scalps ; and they were disposed
to believe that all the money "Captain John" was spending
in dressing his young wives so gorgeously had not been ob-
tained by selling deer-*kins and furs, but that it had been
paid to him for his services against the Americans, and per-
haps for some of the scalps of their white brethren. Add-
ing these things to the cruel treatment of the old squaw, of
which everybody was cognizant, a very bitter feeling was
aroused against him among the men as well as amongst the
women. It was very seldom that an Indian had more than
one squaw. I have known one or two instances where an
Indian had one or two squaws, but never before where
they had as many as three. So bitter was the life of this
poor old squaw that she often wished that she could leave
this cruel world and go to the Indian's happy hunting
ground where she would be no longer tormented with rival
wives and a cruel husband. The only relief the poor old
thing had from her sorrows was to drown them in whisky.
She had no trouble to find some person who would let her
have whisky, for it was the general impression that the only
comfort she ever had was when she was hilariously drunk.
In that condition she would tell in broken English the story
of her hard lot what a bad Indian "Captain John" was,

EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS. 61

what a good squaw she had always been, how "Captain
John" had got drunk and bit off her nose, that his two
young squaws were no good, that they would not work, and
that she had all the work to do, etc., etc.

So it came about that "Captain John" found that it was
not safe for him to stay in that part of the country any
longer ; and he packed his goods on some ponies and with
his three squaws moved up to the Rock river country among
the Black Hawk tribe. I never heard from "Captain
John" and his squaws after that time.

It is probable that there is no other country in the
United States in which the Indians so delighted to live and
which they were so sorry to leave as the beautiful hunting
grounds embraced in the counties of Eulton, Schuyler and
Mason. It was a perfect paradise for them. They could
find about everything that their hearts could desire, and it
was about as good a place for the poor white man as it was
for the Indian. The deer roamed through the country by
the thousands. It is not an exaggeration to say that I have
seen 500 deer in the woods and prairies in a single day.
Every other kind of game and fowl was abundant, and the
rivers and small streams were full of fish. The bee trees
were so numerous that white settlers and Indians could get
all the honey they wanted, and there were groves of sugar
trees all over the country from which an abundance of
maple sugar was made. The wild fruit was equally won-
derful, there being no limit to the plums, crabapples,
grapes, black and redhaws, gooseberries, blackberries, dew-
berries and strawberries. Acres upon acres of wild onions
could be found in the woods, and wild potatoes in great
abundance. Potato creek, south of Spoon river, received
its name from the great abundance of wild potatoes that
grew on its bank. The hard freezing in the winter did not
affect them and they were about as good to eat as Irish po-
tatoes. There was another valuable plant that grew in the
woods, called ginseng. The roots resembled very much the
parsnips familiar in our gardens. Ginseng grew in the
woods in the rich loam, and great quantities of it would be
dug and sold to the merchants, who would sack it and send

62 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

it to St. Louis. It was used for medical purposes and
brought a good price. The Indians had a large traffic in
digging ginseng and wild potatoes, which they sold to the
merchants and settlers. But when the hogs became very
numerous in the woods, they soon exterminated both the
ginseng and the wild potatoes.

CHAPTEE XVI.

APPEARANCE OF THE COUNTRY WHEN EARLY SETTLERS

ARRIVED. EXTENSIVE AND BEAUTIFUL PRAIRIES. MY

EXPERIENCE IN HAULING HAY. DISCOVERY OF COAL BY

MR. GARDINER. FIRST BANKING ESTABLISHMENT IN

FULTON COUNTY.

I have been asked by some of my old friends in Fulton
county to tell something about how the country looked
when the first settlers arrived in it, about the groves, the
prairies, the watercourses and the kinds of wild animals
found in tho country. So I will endeavor 'to answer some
of these questions.

The lace of the country has undergone a wonderful
change in appearance, aside from the great improvements
that have been made. The beautiful groves of timber then
standing unmarred by the woodman's ax have been cleared
away; and the handsome prairies, that were then covered
with high grass and beautiful flowers, have been broken up,
so it is hard to tell which was timber and which was prairie
land. There is one thing that has altered the looks of the
country very much since it was first settled, and that is the
extensive growth of young timber and brush, unknown in
pioneer times. Before the county was settled by white peo-
ple, prairie fires were permitted to sweep through the coun-
try every year, and they destroyed what is now called "bar-
rens" and underbrush. The smooth prairies came square
up to the distinct groves of large timber. In those days a
man traveling through Table Grove, and many of the other

EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS. 63

groves in the county, could see a deer 500 or 600 yards
away in the prairie ; but twenty-five or thirty years later a
deer could not be seen a distance of fifty yards because of
the growth of the brush and young timber. There was no
such land in the county as that now called "barrens." The
groves were very beautiful before any of the timber had
been cut, and before there was any undergrowth. Table
Grove was one of the great landmarks of the country. It
could be seen from the bluffs of the Illinois river on the
east, and from Macomb on the west, and from the north for
twenty-five or thirty miles. Travelers across the unbroken
and almost pathless prairie were guided in their course by
Table Grove and other perspicuous groves.

Many of the streams of water, such as Big Creek, Sugar,
Otter, Copperas, Cedar and Buckheart Creek, would run
grist and lumber mills about two-thirds of the year. These
streams and their valleys, covered by a thick growth of
timber and full of wild game, were beautiful beyond
words.

The prairies were generally named after the men that
first settled upon them. The prairie where Canton stands
was called "Barnes' Prairie," for David W. Barnes, who
was the first settler there. The prairie west of Cuba was
called "Totten's Prairie," in honor of William Totten, who
was the first settler. The prairie in Pleasant township was
named "Rowland's Prairie," for William and Eiley Row-
land, the first settlers. The prairie on the Illinois bottom
south of Spoon river was called "Gardiner's Prairie." An
old Scotch Presbyterian settled there in 1823. He had
two sons and three daughters. He was the father of James
and Charles Gardiner, whose names are frequently men-
tioned in Chapman's History of Fulton County. But no
allusion has been made to the old father. He was one of
the most exemplary Christian men, as well as most enter-
prising, among the early pioneers. He never failed of
holding family worship morning and evening, and would
always ask a blessing at the table, and after the meal was
through no one was allowed to leave the table until he had
returned thanks. Such devotion was remarkable among

64 EAELY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

the early pioneers. He moved from Springfield, and
brought with him nursery stock for the famous orchard
that for a long time was known all over that country as
"Gardiner's Orchard." Gardiner's Prairie extended south
from Spoon river about three miles, and from the bluffs to
a fringe of timber within half a mile of the Illinois river,
also three miles. The land was very rich, but part of it
was too wet for cultivation. The prairie that joined
Thompson's lake, north of Spoon river, was about two
miles square, and with the lake was named for Nathan
Thompson. He and his son-in-law, Stephen Meeker, were
the first settlers on that prairie. The prairie two miles
east of Lewistown was about three miles long and from one
to two miles wide, and it was called " Smith's Prairie "
after Jeremiah Smith, who first settled there on a place that
was afterwards owned by Col. Reuben Simms. It was one
N/bf the most beautiful prairies mortal eyes ever beheld. It
was covered with what was called blue-stemmed grass, a
most excellent grass for hay. It grew from three to four
feet high, and afforded hay enough for all the people of
Lewistown and the settlers for many miles in all direc-
tions. All the people had to do was to cut the hay and
haul it home. At that time hay was cut with a scythe and
raked together with a wooden hand-rake and pitchfork.
Among my recollections was of riding a horse to haul hay
on Smith's Prairie. I was a little codger of seven or eight
years. We had to haul the hay together for stacking on
what was called a brush sled. A small, bushy tree would
be cut down and some of the limbs cut off so as to make
a sort of flat surface ; and the hay would then be piled on
top ; a horse would be hitched to the contrivance by a chain
or rope, and so the hay would be hauled to the place where
it was to be stacked. And that was what we called a
" brush sled." Many a hot summer day I have rode the .
old horse to haul hay on the Smith Prairie, where the
Rices, W. W. Smith, Sampsl Campbell, J. Wertman, W.
C. Harrison, the Lawses, Rileys and Chapins now live.

One time the green-head flies attacked my old horse so
bad that he ran away. My strength was not sufficient to

EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS. 65

hold him ; after he had run about half a mile I jumped off
but did not jump far enough to miss the brush top that he
was dragging, so I was caught under the brush sled, and
was so badly bruised that I was laid up for repairs for sev-
eral days. The old horse never stopped running until he
got home.

Smith's Prairie was celebrated for the numerous plum
and crabapple orchards that grew round its borders. The
large red and yellow plums grew there in such abundance
that people would come from long distances and haul them
away by the wagon-loads, and would preserve them with
honey or maple sugar, which were the only sweetening we
had in pioneer times. This' fruit made a good substitute
for domestic fruit. Fulton county was blessed above
other sections of the state in its great abundance of sugar-
tree groves, which enabled people to make their own sugar.

There is one other thing that will appear very remark-
able. When the first settlers came to tlie county there
was no one that appeared to have the remotest idea that
there was such a thing as bituminous coal all about them
in the earth, or that it had any use. The only people
who had lived there were the Indians, and they never
used it, and the people would as soon have thought of
looking for gold or silver as looking for coal. It was
about two years after the first settlement was made that
coal was discovered. Meantime blacksmithing was one
of the first things needed in the settlement, and a coal pit
was built and charcoal burned and used until stone coal
was discovered. The first coal found in the county was
discovered by old Mr. Gardiner, whom I have referred to
as having settled about ten miles south of Lewistown.
He was out one day to look for stone to build a fireplace in
his log house which he had just erected, and in digging
for stone he found the coal bank which was situated at
the foot of the bluff east of what is now known as Isabel
church. Mr. Gardiner took a load of the coal to Lewis-
town, and the people were highly delighted to learn that
stone coal had been found in the countv. The next coal

66 EAELY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

bank that was discovered was on Big Creek about where
the Narrow Gauge crosses it three miles north of Lewis-
town. Another bank was discovered three miles south-
west of Lewistown. But the Gardiner bank supplied all
the people south of Spoon river and at Havana with all
the coal they wanted free of charge. All they had to do
was to go and dig and then haul it home. I remember
that when I was living in Havana of going with Mr. East-
man Call to the Gardiner bank to dig coal. Mr. Call
had just opened a blacksmith shop at Havana, which was
before he opened a shop at Lewistown. It took but a
short time to fill our wagon with coal. So I could have
it to tell that I had dug coal out of the first coal bank that
was ever opened in Fulton county.

May I also be permitted modestly to recall the fact that
I opened the first banking establishment in Fulton county.
It was a branch, of a Jacksonville state bank, and was lo-
cated in the town of Vermont in 1859, and w T as called the
"Fulton Bank." The bank bills were issued and printed
at Jacksonville, Illinois. I was appointed agent, and had
the entire supervision and control of it. I can say that,
no depositor or patron of that bank ever lost a dollar
throuffh his dealings with it. So I have had the honor

O CD

of digging coal out of the first bank ever discovered in
Fulton county, and also of operating the first bank ever
opened in Fulton county, and one occupation was as hon-
orable as the other.

CHAPTER XVII.

JOHN COLEMAN, A REMARKABLE PIONEER. LITTLE PIKERS

FIRST RIDE.

Amongst the early pioneers of Fulton county there was
one man whose name the historians of the county have
failed to mention, who, to my mind, was one of the most
enterprising men in the county, and for the first fifteen

EAKLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS. 67

or twenty years of the county's settlement did more to de-
velop and improve its resources than any other citizen.

His name was John Coleman. He moved from New
Jersey to Fulton county in 1827, coming the entire dis-
tance in two and four-horse wagons. He bought a half-
section (320 acres) of land a half mile north of the then
hamlet of Canton. He was a large man, weighing some
200 pounds, and his wife was a large woman. They had
five sons and three daughters. They were all industrious,
good workers, and in a few years they had in cultiva-
tion the largest and best farm in Fulton county. They
planted out a good orchard, and located on the farm a
blacksmith shop and a horse-mill, and also a dairy for the
manufacture of butter and cheese. While living in New
Jersey Mr. Coleman had carried on the business of manu-
facturing axes, and when he got his shop started he con-
tinued the business of making axes, and they were prob-
ably the first axes that were manufactured in the state.
His axes were all stamped with the name " J. Coleman/'
and were warranted that if an ax broke with proper usage
he'd either mend it or replace it with a new one. He
found a good sale for them. It was a good thing for the
people that such a man had settled among them. He
also brought with him a stock of dry goods, which were
the first goods brought to the vicinity of Canton, and the
next stock brought to the county after the Phelpses had
opened a store at Lewistown.

There were some little circumstances that happened
about the time that the Coleman family came to the county
that I will mention. They crossed the Illinois river at
Havana and came up through Lewistown and camped near
my father's house, Avho then lived north of Lewistown,
where Major Walker now lives. Mr. Coleman came to
the house to buy some corn and hay to feed their horses,
and my father enquired where they came from, and he
replied from New Jersey; and when my mother learned
that they had come from New Jersey, she became inter-
ested in them, as that was her native state, having been

68 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

born and raised there. And she invited him to bring his
wife and stay in the house over night. He remarked that
they had not slept inside of a house since they left New
Jersey; that they camped out and slept in their wagons.
But they came over and spent the evening in talking over
JSTew Jersey with my mother, and stayed all night. The
next morning Mr. Coleman, in looking over my father's
stock of cattle, took quite a liking to a large yoke of oxen
that he had and proposed buying them. My father told
him he could have them for $40. He said he would take
them if he could pay for them in goods ; thathehadbrought
along a stock of goods ; that they were packed away in his
wagons, and that he did not want to open them until he
got some buildings put up, which he thought would take
him five or six weeks. So my father let him have the
oxen, agreeing to trade them out after he got his store
opened. So in about six or seven weeks my mother con-
cluded that she would go up and trade out the price of the
oxen, and as my father was engaged at the time, and could
not go with her, he got a young man named Silas Chase, u
son of old Esq. Stephen Chase who lived in Lewistown, to
go with her and drive the horse and buggy. - They got along
all right until they got to the Big Creek hill, which was
about a half mile long. The timber all the way down the
hill had stood densely thick, and a narroAV road had been
cut out between the trees just wide enough for a wagon to
pass. As there were but few people at that time to do
road work, the trees had been cut to make the roadway
and the stumps left standing in the road. My mother
had taken my youngest brother, Pike, along with her.
He was between two and three years old. Just as they
started down the hill some of the harness broke and let the
single-tree strike the legs of the horse, which frightened
him terribly, and he ran with all the speed that was in him
down the hill, my mother expecting every moment that
the buggy would strike a stump or a tree and dash them
all to the earth. When they had got about half way down
the hill she gathered little Pike and lifted him over the hind
end of the buggy, holding* him by one arm until his feet

EAKLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS. 69

touched the ground, and then dropped him, the horse run-
ning all the way down the hill as hard as he could tear.
The young man could not hold him, but endeavored to
guide him so as to miss the stumps and trees. When they
got to the foot of the hill the horse plunged across Big
Creek just below Ellis' mill dam. The water was about
three feet deep, which checked the speed of the horse, and
as he ascended the opposite bank the driver stopped him.
Young Chase then got out, tied up the broken harness, and
then turned around and drove across the creek to go and
hunt up the boy. They met him coming toddling along
down the hill, and all right. That was his first ride, and
he .probably thought that that was the way the thing had'
to be done. They took him in and crossed the creek again
and started on their way to Coleman's.

When they got there they found that he had put up two
log houses, with a hall running between them, with a door
opening from the hall into each of the houses. One of
the houses was intended for a store and a bedroom, and
the other for a dwelling. They had not had time to put
up any counters and shelves, but had erected in the store-
room three bedsteads, and the goods had been unloaded
from the wagons and piled under the beds. They had
one son called Jerry, who was lame, but could assist in
the store ; and when my mother would call for an article
of goods Jerry would be sent under the bed to hunt it up.
She said that she thought that Jerry had been sent under
the beds at least twenty times for goods by the time she
got done trading.

A short time after the Coleman family came to the
county their oldest daughter, Joanna, was united in mar-
riage to Thomas Wolf, and they settled about four miles
east of Canton. They were all industrious, good farmers,
and made number one good citizens.

There were some things rather remarkable about John
Coleman in regard to his financial operations. At that *
time there were no such institutions in the county as
banks or banking houses, and Mr. Coleman answered very

70 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

well the need of such an institution, for if a man canic
into the county with money that he did not want to use,
Mr. Coleman would always take it of him if he could get
it at five or six per cent interest ; and if another man came
along that wanted to borrow some money, Mr. Coleman
always accommodated him if he would pay ten to twelve
per cent interest, and could give the requisite security.
There was no doubt but that he saved many a man from
having his land sold for taxes, or property sold for debt,
by loaning him money. So he was certainly a benefactor
to the community in which he lived. It was well known
that he handled a good deal of money, and the great query
was where he kept it,foratthattimetherewas no such thing
in existence as an iron safe to keep money in. But it was
told by some that had done business with him that he had
made an iron box, as he was a blacksmith, and kept his
money in that, and had it secreted ' under his bedroom
floor; and when he wanted to have access to his money,
all that he had to do was to pull up a puncheon of the floor
and take out the iron box.

Mr. Coleman was regarded by his neighbors as a very
honorable and just man in all of his dealings, and his word
was considered as good as his bond.

But there came a time when he had to pass through one
of the most tragical and awful ordeals that had ever hap-
pened to him during all of his long and honorable and
useful life. It was on the occasion of what was called
"Westerfield's Defeat," a terrible Indian scare that took
place at Canton during the Blackhawk War. The cause
of the terrible Indian fight, and the stampede of the peo-
ple that followed it, and the prominent part that Mr. Cole-
man took in the affair, I will have to leave for my next
letter. : i

EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS. 71

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE WESTERFIELD INDIAN SCARE. MEMORABLE CYCLONE

OF 1835. UPRISING OF CANTON^S WOMEN AGAINST THE

SALOONS OF THAT VILLAGE.

The pioneer hamlet of Canton passed through three
dreadful ordeals of horror and excitement :

The first was " Westerfield's Defeat " in March, 1832,
a dreadful Indian scare.

The second was the memorable cyclone of June 18, 1835,
in which five Canton people were killed, many houses
blown to pieces, and goods and furniture scattered over the
prairies and forests even into Mason county.

The third great event was the uprising of Canton's
women against the saloons of that village in which men
stood aghast while 100 valiant mothers, wives and sisters
gutted the saloons and routed the whisky sellers.

But I have promised to tell the story of John Coleman's
connection with Westerfield's defeat, as I witnessed part
of the events. There were many reasons in 1832 why the
people of Fulton county should be in apprehension of a
raid and general massacre by Black Hawk and his great
army of Indians. This county for ages had been their
home. Here were their favorite hunting grounds and
loved sugar groves unsurpassed on the whole continent.
Here were the graves of their sires. The Indians ven-
erated their dead as white people do not. They had holy
burial places at Duncan's, Walters' graveyard (where there
are Indian graves to this day), at Mount Pleasant, and at
hundreds of spots along the Spoon and Illinois rivers and
all over the great woods of Fulton county. These Indians
knew their lands had been wrongfully taken from them,
and that the venerated graves of their dead had been ruth-
lessly plowed and desecrated. They had only been driven
out of the county about two years before. The great chief
Black Hawk was at this time making his last heroic stand

72 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

on Rock river. The memorable battle of " Stillman's De-
feat " had just been fought with victory to the Indians, and
among the dead were Bird Ellis, Tyus Childs, John Wal-
ters and Joseph Farris of Fulton county. Many others
were wounded. Among these was Major Samuel Hackel-
ton, who lived on Spoon river, four miles south of Lewis-
town, a few rods west of the spot where the C. B. & Q.
bridge now spans that stream. He had a single combat in
that fight with a chief, both armed with knives. The chief
was killed, but Hackelton received serious wounds that dis-
abled him for a long time. This battle was followed by
dreadful Indian massacres in the Rock river country in
which men and women were killed and scalped and little
children chopped to pieces by the savages.

Then between Canton and Rock river was 100 miles of
wilderness. The Indians could come unheralded to the
cabins of the settlers. All these things were known to the
pioneers, and there was general apprehension and alarm
in the spring of 1832. During March scouts were kept
on the outskirts of the settlement to give warning if bands
of Indians should appear. There was such gloom and
alarm that many people loaded their household goods and
moved over the Illinois river into Sangamon county, where
the settlements were larger, and where they would be safe.
Among these were the wife and younger members of the
family of John Coleman. Meantime the people of Canton
erected a fort or block-house to go into if necessary.

One day Peter Westerfield, an old elder of the Presby-
terian church of Canton, and a Frenchman, Charles
Shane, went on an independent scouting expedition of
their own. Some ten miles northwest of Canton they
came upon a trail running through the grass which they
were sure had been made by traveling Indians. In fact it
was the path rnade the day before by a band of soldiers en
route from Beardstown to join their company on Rock
river. "Westerfield and Shane immediately hurried back
to Canton to report their important and alarming dis-
covery. As they neared Canton they heard shooting and
shouts of a party of fool young hunters who had treed a lot

EAKLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS. 73

of game. Of course they assumed that it was Indians
massacreing white families who lived just there. They
rode furiously into the hamlet of Canton, yelling wildly at
every cabin they passed, " The Indians are on us ! The
Indians are on us !" There was an immediate panic which
no words will describe. People hastily gathered their
wives and little ones and rushed either to Canton or to the
brush, hoping to escape the scalping knives that seemed
hanging over them. In Canton there was the wildest
alarm. Mr. Western* eld had the confidence of the people.
They believed his report implicitly. The more timid
started a-foot and by every means of conveyance toward
Havana and Sangamon county. Others gathered at the
Canton fort to make the best defense they could. The
story of heroism and helplessness from fright would fill
many columns.

John Coleman and his son Jerry were at their store and
residence a half-mile north of Canton. They quickly
started to join Mrs. Coleman and children at Havana, and
as they passed along south through the Wilcoxen neighbor-
hood they gave the alarm at every cabin they passed.
These people in turn gave the alarm to their neighbors in
what is now Buckheart, Liverpool and Waterford town-
ships, as the road from Canton to Havana passed four or
five miles east of Lewistown.

Mr. Coleman and his son got to the ferry at Havana
about 4 o'clock in the afternoon. My father was keeping
the ferry at that time, and had two boats one large one
for heavy teams, and a smaller one for horsemen and
buggies. As a lad I was then steersman for the smaller
boat, and was an eye-witness to the stirring events of that
time in Havana. We heard the frantic yells of Mr. Cole-
man through the dense timber half-a-mile away from the
ferry. As he came nearer we could hear " Indians !"
" Murder !" When they got to the boat Mr. Coleman told
us of the Indian raid at Canton, of the probable horrid
massacre of many families, and that the people were com-
ing to the river in swarms, and that we had better have both
boats ready at once, as we would have all we could do to

74 EAKLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

ferry them over. He was entirely correct, for we had only
landed them on the Havana side when we again heard
hallooing on 'the west side of the river, and the people
poured in upon us in such a flood that both boats were kept
busy until 11 o'clock at night. The people came a-foot, on
horse-back and in all imaginable pioneer conveyances.
As many as three of four members of a family would
come riding on one horse. There was but one block-house
in Havana at that time, and many of these people went
right on into the Springfield country.

After the people had all been ferried over the river there
were two men who determined to go back to the Canton
country and see just what the situation was, and at Canton
they learned that it was all a mistake, and that there had
not been an Indian within maybe 100 miles of the settle-
ment. So they hurried back to Havana to tell the good
news, and the people with unbounded joy began at once to
return to their homes. Mr. Coleman and his family had
gone on to the Springfield country. But in a few days
they returned and were again ferried over into the Fulton
county country and returned to their Canton home and
store in a much pleasanter frame of mind than when they
so suddenly left. But Mr. Coleman was not feeling very
amiable toward his neighbor, Mr. Westerfield. But there
is no doubt that the old elder was just as honest and sincere
in warning his neighbors to flee from Black Hawk's toma-
hawk and scalping knife as when he was leading a prayer-
meeting in the Canton Presbyterian church.

But it was the greatest Indian scare that ever was known
in that country.

EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS. 75

CHAPTER XIX.

PIONEER HANGINGS. EARLY LAWYERS.

In all the seventy- five years of Fulton county's history
there has never been a legal execution within its limits.
In that time there have been scores of murders, many of
them meriting the death penalty, but owing to the tricks of
lawyers and the weakness of juries, these criminals have
all escaped serious punishment.

However, I beg permission in this letter to discuss some
of the pioneer hangings that I have witnessed, although it
is not a very pleasant subject to write about. But there
are valuable lessons connected with these tragedies that
will not be lost upon the readers of The Fulton Democrat.

The first execution that I ever witnessed was that of a
father and his son who were hung in Rushville, Illinois, in
June, 1835. They were Elias McFadden and son David,
who lived a mile south of Macomb. The sheriff came
one day with an execution to levy on a crib of corn, and got
a farmer named John Wilson, a quiet and much respected
citizen of the neighborhood, to go with him with his horses
and wagon to haul the corn away. When the two men ar-
rived at McFadden's farm the older McFadden in great
heat struck the horses with a stick and ordered them to
leave the place. But they persisted in levying on the corn,
when young McFadden fired from their cabin window and
shot John Wilson so that he died within a couple of days.
The McFaddens were arrested, but took a change of venue
to Schuyler county. They were tried before Judge R. M.
Young and prosecuted by Cyrus Walker, prosecuting at-
torney for that district. The two men were convicted of
murder and sentenced to be hung. Notice was given in the
newspapers that the execution would be public, and hun-
dreds of people from Fulton, McDonough and Schuyler
counties went to see the double hanging.

I was then living at Havana, and with another young

76 EABLY PIONEEKS AND EVENTS.

man started to see the execution. On the road we came
up with Hugh Lamaster, Nathan Beadles and Robert
Gamble, all from Lewistown on their way to Rushville.
Mr. Lamaster invited us to stop over night with their
party at the home of one of his uncles, about three miles
north of Rushville. Here we found a Christian and hos-
pitable home in which no pay would be taken for our en-
tertainment. The next day was the time of the execution,
and we found 1000 to 1200 people gathered about the jail
to see the prisoners as they were to march to their death.
About twenty minutes before they were taken out, a couple
of two-horse wagons were driven up to the jail, in each of
which was a coffin in plain view. The prisoners were
brought from the upper portion of the jail down a flight of
stairs on the outside. They were both tall men, and were
dressed in white shrouds, with white caps on their heads.
They made a very ghostly appearance as they walked down
the long stairs and climbed into the wagons and took their
seats on the top of their coffins.

1 should here remind the readers that, when a person
was buried they were dressed in white cambric shrouds,
similar to those the prisoners wore, which 'added so much
to their horrible appearance. It was not until about in
1845 that the people commenced to bury their friends in
their wearing apparel.

The distance from the jail to the place of execution was
about a mile, and a long procession was formed, some in
wagons, some on horseback, and others a-foot. One of
the strangest things about this event was the fact that the
wife and mother of the two men was in the procession to
go and see husband and son executed. The place of ex-
ecution was a hollow between two hills which afforded
the people a good view of the hanging. It was estimated
that from 2,000 to 3,000 people were present. The men
both testified that they had both experienced religion while
confined, in the jail and had received forgiveness for their
awful crime. They talked for a few moments, then
shook hands with some of their friends, then shook hands

EA1U.Y PIONEERS AND EVENTS. 77

with each other, and then embraced and kissed each other,
and then the white caps were drawn over their faces and
the trap was sprung. As they were launched into eternity
the old lady, the wife of one and mother of the other, was
only a few rods away gazing intently upon the scene. As
the drop fell with her beloved ones dangling at the end of
the ropes, she gave one awful scream of anguish and ter-
ror and then all was still. After they had hung about
fifteen minutes they were taken down and laid in their
coffins. It was all so tragical and dreadful to behold that
it haunted my young mind by night and by day for many .
months.

X2. L> ' ; -

The next JiangingJ:hat I had an opportunity o^ seeing
was that of Peter McCue, who hung himself in his hatter
shop in Lewistown in about 1843. I happened to be in
town that day. (His shop was on the spot where the
Walter Belless building is now going up.) I was riding
clown Main street and observed a great crowd of men and
boys peeping through the windows to see the body. I got
off of my horse and took a peep at him myself. He had
fastened a cord to a joist in his hatter shop, and was hang-
ing with his toes just touching the floor. The only person
that I can recall, now living, who was present was Maj.
jSTewton Walker. I knew Peter McCue very well, while
he was carrying on the hatter's trade, for about nine years.
He was single, about thirty-five years of age, an Irishman
by birth and a Catholic in religion. Pie learned his trade
in the old country and was a very good and successful hat-
ter. When he put an end to his life he was in the habit
of going to St. Louis once a year. His friends used to vX
say it was for the purpose of confessing his sins to a priest.
The last time he started on this annual trip he went as
far as Havana, and while waiting for a steamboat the Illi-
nois river froze up and he had to return to Lewistown.
His friends observed that he was melancholy after his re-
turn home, but did not dream that it was a serious matter.
It was inferred that his failure to see the priest had some-
thing to do with his suicide. I remember that Peter one

78 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

time made a fur hat for my father for $8.50, and it was
well worth the money, for it was one of the most beautiful
hats I have ever seen. My father had only worn it three
or four times before his death, and my mother subse-
quently gave it to the Rev. Dr. David Nelson, a Presby-
terian minister, who was conducting a camp meeting near
Canton, in the fall of 1838, when some 150 or 200 people
were converted and joined the church. I have had oc-
casion once before to speak of Dr. Nelson, and will only
add that he was one of the early pioneer Presbyterian
ministers who traveled through the country between the
Mississippi and Illinois rivers and organized very many
churches and Sabbath schools.

A year after Peter McCue went to Lewistown I also
went there to attend school, and for a long time boarded
with Peter with the family of W. C. Osborn. So we
were a good deal together. He was kind and friendly
disposed, and I had come to like him very much, and was
very sad indeed to see the poor fellow hanging dead in his
own shop.

Mr. W. C. Osborn, the man we boarded with, was the
second lawyer that settled in Fulton county. Hugh R.
Coulter was the first lawyer, and William Elliott the
third. At that time Mr. Osborn owned the entire block
west of the public square in Lewistown, and his dwelling
house stood on the south side of the block. He was one
of the well-known pioneers of that time.

CHAPTER XX.

SUICIDE OF EDWARD STAPLEFORD AND ITS AWFUL
CONSEQUENCE.

The/suicide of Edward Stapleford in the town of Ver-
mont, about 1857, had some unusual features. He was a
native of Maryland, had run a store in Beardstown, Illi-
nois, and came to Vermont and opened a store in about

EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS. 79

1845. He was a shrewd business man and soon had
worked up quite a trade. He had frequently engaged in
speculations in pork and wheat and anything in which
money could be made. Generally he was very successfuJ.

In those time we had no railways, and the only way o
shipping products to market was by steamboats on the Illi-
nois river to St. Louis. We had no telegraphic communica-
tions with the world, and but one mail a week ; so the most
direct way of getting commercial news was from news-
papers brought up on steamboats from St. Louis. During
the progress of the Crimean war in 1854-'55 the price of
pork and wheat went up to a very much higher price than
it had been for many years, and many country merchants
in Illinois were ripe for speculation, and Mr. Stapleford
was one of the most ambitious merchants among them.

One Saturday evening he succeeded in getting a news-
paper direct from St. Louis, and it brought the news that
wheat and pork had taken a wonderful rise in price. It
was later news than any of the .other merchants had been
able to get; so he started out early Sunday morning to
scour the country and buy up all the wheat and pork he
could find. He was afraid to wait until Monday lest the
other merchants should also find out the good news and
get ahead of him.

I was also keeping store in Vermont at that time, and
our stores were close together. The next morning he
stopped at my store as he was passing. He was in his
happiest mood. It was his trait to be happy when he was
making money, but very gloomy if trade was against him.

" Good morning," was Mr. Stapleford's salutation,
" where do you suppose I Avas yesterday ?"

I replied that I supposed he was with his family at
church.

He then told me of his having contracted with a good
many farmers for their pork and wheat. Apparently it
was a master stroke.

Mr. Stapleford rushed business with all his might to
get his produce en route to St. Louis before the river

80 EA17LY PIONEEKS AND EVENTS.

should freeze ; but, alas ! just as he was ready to load his
pork and wheat on a steamboat cold weather set in,
the river was frozen solid, and his stuff laid at the
warehouse until the first of April. Then the war
had ended, and produce had gone down one-halt
in price. Of course he was in debt to the St. Louis
merchants, and when his produce arrived they were on
hand to secure the last dollar due them, and it left him
almost nothing to pay the farmers who had sold him their
produce on credit.

When he came home it was noised abroad that he had
lost big money on his venture. The farmers were in
great need of their money to pay their taxes and other
pressing debts. So these farmers gathered in crowds
and demanded their money, sometimes in no very gentle
tones. Mr. Stapleford was very proud and haughty, and
these assaults annoyed and angered him tremendously.

One day he went to dinner as usual and ate a hearty
meal: nothing unusual appeared in his manner. But as
he started out he saw five or six of his creditors lining the
street and awaiting his appearance, presumably to renew
their appeals for the money due them. He -turned round
and started for his back door, remarking to his wife :

" I guess I'll fool those fellows."

He went out at the back door, Mrs. S. naturally suppos-
ing he had gone to the store by a back way to avoid his
creditors.

But a half-hour later he was found hanging by a cord
in his barn, and dead. He had '' fooled those fellows " by
committing suicide ! The alarm was given, and great
crowds visited the barn to see the grewsome spectacle.

About eight months after Mr. Stapleford moved to
Vermont he had married one of the handsomest and
most amiable and popular young ladies of the town.
She belonged to one of the best families of the
place, and was connected with some of the best
families of Cincinnati. He was fifteen years her
senior, but the marriage was understood to have
been a happy one. They had several children, and they

EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS. 81

were bright and beautiful. His death was such a shock
to his devoted wife that she became insane. Her parents
cared for her as long as they lived, and after their deat 11
she was in the care of Cincinnati relatives. Forty long
years this poor wife was a care to those who loved her.

It is strange that any mortal should thus desert such a
wife and family by the suicide route.

CHAPTEK XXL

THE PIONEEK DOCTOR AND HIS METHODS OF TREATMENT.

THE INDIAN DOCTOR. HOW HE CURED ME.

In looking backward over the seventy-five years of my
past life I am struck with wonder and amazement at the
improvements in art, science and literature. The wonder
is, what will the next seventy-five years develop ?

I shall discuss the advancement made in two of the pro-
fessions, medicine and teaching. In this paper I will de-
scribe the pioneer doctor.

In early times in Fulton county there was no such thing
as a drug store. The merchants kept a supply of medi-
cines in stock among their dry goods and groceries. The
doctors never gave prescriptions, but carried their medi-
cines around in medicine bags and dosed it out to their
patients.

When a doctor was called to see a patient the first thing
he did was to examine his tongue, then feel of the pulse at
the wrist; then he would have the sick one set up in a
chair to be bled. The sleeve of one arm would be rolled
up to the shoulder, and the arm extended out to full length,
and the hand grasped around the handle of a broom-stick
to hold the arm steady and in proper position. A cord
would then be tied tightly around the arm half way be-
tween the eldow and shoulder, and then the patient was
stabbed in a blood vessel of the arm. At first a thumb-
lance was used, but the spring-lance came in as a great im-

82 EARLY PIONEEKS AND EVENTS.

provement. They usually took from, a pint to a quart of
blood, dependent upon the age and size of the sick one.
After the bleeding the patient would be given an emetic,
and after he had been thoroughly vomited he would be
given a dose of calomel and jalop, and then a walloping
dose of castor oil. After all those horrors the patient
would be taken through a course of blistering. A blister
6x10 inches would be placed upon the breast, with smaller
ones on the arms and legs ; if the patient was very sick a
portion of the hair would be shaved off the head and one of
those horrible blisters applied to the head.

The doctors made their own blister-plasters. They car-
ried in their medicine bags a package of Spanish flies, a
small cake of tallow and some pieces of canvas. The tal-
low would be carefully spread over the canvas, the Spanish
flies sprinkled over it and pulverized with a caseknife.
These flies were large and yellow, resembling yellow wasps.
The plasters would be left on from six to eight hours, caus-
ing terrible pain. They would then be removed and the
blister dressed with cabbage leaves, or a bit of tallowed
muslin. Sometimes the blisters would be drawn so deep
that it would be two weeks before they -would healj and
during the time a white substance would appear in the
wound which was called "proud flesh," and it was removed
by sprinkling over it powdered roasted alum, this also caus-
ing great agony.

One marvelous thing the common people could not un-
derstand was that after the patient had gone through with
all this bleeding, vomiting, purging and blistering, and been
reduced to the very last extremity, he was not allowed by
the doctor to take any nourishing food nothing better
than a little thin gruel, a little chicken broth, or a little
toast and tea ; and while the poor creature, tortured with a
burning thirst, might be screaming for water, he was not
allowed to have one cool drop, but might have a little warm
tea or slippery-elm tea water.

Tf under this treatment the patient was fortunate enough
to get well, the doctor would claim for himself a vast
amount of credit for his skill that brought him from the

EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS. 83

verge of the grave; but if the poor creature diedj it was
laid to the decree of Providence.

In the early days we had no dentists, and the regular
doctors did all the tooth-pulling. They carried an instru-
ment called a tooth-drawer, or "pullikens," shaded like a
gimlet, but with a loose hook that was caught around the
tooth, and then a twist of the handle brought out the tooth
sometimes. The price for pulling a tooth was 25 cents.

It was three and a half years after the county was first
settled by white people before we had a regular doctor.
But we found here an Indian doctor who was practicing in
Indian families, of whom I will have more to say.

We also found residing near Waterf ord Dr. W. T. Davi-
son, but he was a hermit and refused to practice or have
anything to do with white people; and when they com-
menced to settle around him he loaded his goods into a
canoe and left the county.

The readers will remember Mrs. Jacob Niman, who
once mounted a fleet horse and started for Springfield,
1821. She followed midwifery, and usually with good
success. For three years she was present at about all the
births in Lewistown and vicinity. But when she was
called to attend my aunt, Mrs. Hugh R. Coulter, the child
did well, but the mother did not do well, and Mrs. 1SR-
inan did not appear to know how to treat her. The Indian
doctor was called in consultation, but he told Mr. Coulter
his wife would die and he did not wish to prescribe for
fear he would be blamed ; but intimated that if he had
been called at first all would have been well.

Then came a ride for life. My Uncle Thomas Ross at
once mounted a fieet horse and started for Springfield,
fifty-eight miles distant, for the doctor nearest to Lewis-
town. He never stopped his wild ride for life, through
116 miles of wild pioneer woods, until he had the doctor
at her bedside. The doctor stayed with her twenty-four
hours, and then went home. He was eminent in his pro-
fession, but could not save her life. She died in two days.
Her babe grew to be a fine boy. Mr. Coulter subsequently

84 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

married a Miss Bushnell, who was killed by a runaway
team at Galena, 111.

My Aunt Maria Coulter was the first person buried in
the present cemetery north of Lewistown. All those who
had previously died in the village and vicinity were buried
in the first graveyard in East Lewistown (the site of the
little East Primary schoolhouse). Two of the pall-bearers
who attended my aunt's funeral were the late Myron
Phelps and John Johnson, then proprietor of Waterford.
Some fifteen persons had been buried in the little east
cemetery. Some of the bodies were moved to the present
cemetery, and others remain there to this day.

The Indian doctor I have referred to practiced medicine
in a different manner from white doctors. He was one
of the first Indians we got acquainted with in 1821. He
was about fifty years old, and could speak a little English.
He was very friendly with the white people and soon
gained their confidence and friendship. The Indians re-
garded him as a very great man and had all confidence in
him as a doctor. He lived at a small Indian village on
the bank of Big Creek, three miles northwest of Lewis-
town, near the site of Milton. He carried his medicines
in a leathern pouch by his side, and rode a fine-looking
black pony. He practiced among the Indian families,
and often attended the whites, generally giving good satis-
faction. His medicines consisted of herbs, barks, root ex-
tracts and various oils from beasts, birds and reptiles.
Rattlesnake oil was a favorite remedy. Another treat-
ment was to sweat or steam his patient. He would dig a
hole 10x10 inches square in a wigwam, get it aglow with
live coals, and over this he would place his patient covered
with blankets until there was profuse perspiration; in
some cases he used steam from a vessel over the coals.
The Indian doctor was often in Lewistown, and sometimes
went even to Havana to see the sick. Once while we lived
at Havana I had taken a serious cold, and father called
this Indian doctor, who happened to be there. He gave
me some fine powdered substance to snuff up my nose ; it
set me to sneezing so dreadfully that my parents were

EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS. 85

alarmed, but the doctor assured them that I was in no
danger. The sneezing soon ceased. He next took some
herbs and barks from his pouch, made a poultice of them,
bound it about my forehead, and next day I was all right.

CHAPTER XXII.

PIONEER SCHOOLS. FIRST STEEL PENS. HOW SOME

YOUNG LADIES WERE PUNISHED FOR DISOBEYING RULES.
FIRST SCHOOLHOUSE AND ITS CONSTRUCTION.

A history of how the public schools were conducted in
the early settlement of Fulton county may be interesting
to some of the readers of The Democrat ; so I will give a
little of my experience and observation in regard to some
of them.

For several years after the first settlement of the county
there were no public school funds to pay the teachers,
and when a school was needed in a town or neighborhood
the teacher would go around amongst the patrons of the
school with a subscription paper to see how many scholars
could be obtained, and if enough could be obtained to jus-
tify him in teaching, he Avould take the school. The term
that the schools were taught was three months, and the tui-
tion was from $1.50 to $2.00 per quarter; and if the pa-
trons were satisfied with the teacher they would engage
him for another term, but not for more than three months
at a time. The branches taught were reading, spelling,
writing, arithmetic, geography and grammar. The school
would be graded into first, second and third classes.

In opening the school in the morning the first class was
required to read a chapter in the New Testament, and, if
the chapter was a short one, they would read two chapters,
each scholar reading one verse. The teacher would usually
consume about half an hour each forenoon in making and
repairing pens and setting copies for those that were learn-
ing to write. At that time there was no such thing in that

86 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

part of the country as gold or steel pens, and all the pens
used for writing were made from quills plucked from the
wings of a turkey or a goose. The first steel pens intro-
duced was about the year 1831. I remember that in 1831
my father went to St. Louis and laid in a stock of goods,
and among his purchases were a half dozen cards of steel
pens. They came fastened on cards, a dozen on a card.
That was as many as any merchant thought it prudent to
buy at one time. The use of them was strongly disap-
proved of by the teachers. They would tell the scholars
that they would never become good writers if they learned
to write with a steel pen. The price they sold at when
they first came in use was 12^ cents a pen. The steel
pens at first used were much coarser and heavier than the
pens now used, and a very great improvement has been
made in them since they first came in use.

It was the custom in those times that when a teacher
took a school to make a statement to his scholars of the
rules and regulations by which the school was to be gov-
erned ; and if any of the scholars disobeyed those orders
and regulations they were to be punished, whether male
or female ; and it made no difference how old, or how
young, or how large, or how small, they would all come
under the same rule ; and their rules were like the laws of
the Medes and Persians were unalterable. They had
two modes of punishment. One was to be whipped, and
the other to stand upon a bench to be gazed at by the whole
school until the teacher ordered them to come down.

I will relate some of the circumstances at a time when
the school was taught in the old log court house in Lewis-
town. The schoolteacher was an old Englishman by the
name of John Elliott. He had only been a short time
from the old country when he came to Lewistown and took
the school. He was low in stature, but very fleshy and cor-
pulent, and a fair specimen of a genuine " John Bull."
One of the rules of his school was that if any scholar
should absent himself from school for fifteen minutes after
school was taken up he was to be punished, unless a satis-
factory excuse could be given. It was in the fall of the

EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS. 87

year, and at a time when the woods around Lewistown
were full of nuts, wild fruit and grapes. So one day, dur-
ing the noon spell, a dozen or fifteen of us took a stroll
through the woods on the hunt of nuts and wild fruit. But
it so happened that we ventured so far away that we did
not get back until school had been taken up about half an
hour. So, having broken one of the rules of the school, we
all had to be punished. The boys were called up, one at a
time, and each received four or five strokes across the back
with a whip. There were three young ladies that were at-
tending school who were in the company of the transgres-
sors. Their ages ran from sixteen to eighteen, and thfc
punishment meted out to them was that they were to go up
into the judge's stand and climb up and stand upon the
top of the judge's writing table. The young ladies were
Miss Sally Laughton, daughter to John Laughton ; Miss
^ancy Johnson, daughter to William Johnson, who was
one of the county commissioners, and Miss Susan Went-
worth, daughter to Elijah Went worth. They were amongst
the most prominent families of the town. The young
ladies were all quite tall, and as they stood in a row their
heads extended up to the upper floor of the court house,
and, as the floor had been laid with loose puncheons, the
young ladies amused the scholars by raising up the ends
of the puncheons on the top of their heads. This so
amused one of the small boys that he laughed loud enough
to be heard by the teacher, who called him up to punish
him for his rudeness, when he excused himself by telling
the teacher that he could not help laughing, for Sally
Laughton kept tucking her head up in the loft. After
they had stood about twenty minutes on their perch they
were ordered to come down and to take their seats. They
knew very well that it would not have done any good to
have resisted the order of the schoolteacher, for if they
had, they would have been whipped the same as the boys
had been. Some of the smaller sized girls that Avere
among the truants were let off by having to stand for a
short time up on a bench. The teacher would have re-
garded himself as being recreant in his duty if he had let

88 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

anyone escape punishment that had violated the rules of
his school.

The first schoolhouse that was ever built in Lewistown
or in Fulton county was built on a lot that stood imme-
diately west of the public square. It was built of round
logs 14x16 feet in size and covered with clapboards held
down with heavy weight poles. The cracks in the walls
were chinked and filled in with mud. The floors were laid
down loose with hewed puncheons. The door was made
of rough boards and hung on wooden hinges with wooden
door-latch. There were two windows large enough for a
sash containing six 8x10 glass, but as glass could not be
obtained at that time, oiled paper was substituted for glass.
A chimney was made of lath and made with a huge fire-
place in one end of the house, large enough to contain a
log two feet in diameter. The seats were made from a
section of a log hewed on one side and wooden pins driven
in auger holes for bench legs with no backs to rest the
weary body against. The school was kept in this log
schoolhouse some two years and until the log court house
was built; the school was then transferred to the court
house and a great day was manifested by teachers and
scholars when the change was made. It was the custom
in those times for the teacher to retain the scholars in
school from eight to nine hours a day, and when I look
back and think about how us poor urchins had to sit in
those hard and rough benches during those long and weary
hours with nothing to rest our tired backs against, I can-
not help thinking that it was a most terrible cruel treat-
ment.

EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS. 89

CHAPTEK XXIII.

LETTER FROM MR. JOHN W. PROCTOR. MY REPLY THERETO.

Los ANGELES, CAL., April 12.

Editor Democrat: ISTot long since I wrote to Mr. H.
L. Ross of Oakland to thank him for the noble sketches
he is writing for The Democrat, which have been so
highly appreciated by all old residents of Illinois who
have seen them. In my letter I mentioned the fact that
I had attended his father's funeral (the late O. M. Ross) ;
that Rev. Robt. Stewart of Canton came to my father's
house in Lewistown on his way to attend Mr. Ross' funeral
in Havana ; that it was in mid-winter and very cold ;
that father hitched his horses to a box-sled, and Rev.
Stewart, father, mother and myself, with sufficient buf-
falo robes, were soon ready for the long, cold ride, and that
we crossed the Illinois river on the ice. I was then a boy
of eight or nine. In his reply Mr. Ross has said many
things of great interest to my relatives, and I think they
will interest many pioneers. So I have his consent to
print his letter. Few men have lived in Fulton county
who have exerted a greater influence for good than H. L.
Ross.

JOHN W. PROCTOR.

ME. ROSS' LETTER.

OAKLAND, CAT,., March 20.
MR. JOHN W. PROCTOR, Los Angeles, Cal.

My Dear Old Friend: I was very glad to get your good
letter. It carried my mind back to the days of my youth. I
very well remember that your father and mother attended
the funeral of my father in 1837. Rev. Robt. Stewart of
Canton came with them and preached the funeral sermon.
The Illinois river had frozen over a few days before, and
was not thought to be very safe. So your father walked
across on the ice and got a spike pole out of the ferry

90 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

boat and tried the ice, and then drove the horses and
sleigh across the river, while he walked beside the sleigh,
and Mr. Stewart and your mother walked a few rods
behind the sleigh. I was attending college at Jackson-
ville at the time father died, but came home for the
funeral. My brother Lewis was at Vandalia, and did
not get home until five days after the funeral. Your
father and mother were a very great help to us on that
occasion.

Your father, as well as mine, was engaged in merchan-
dizing. They went to St. Louis together one time to
buy goods. As they were going from the hotel to take the
steamboat, my father asked Mr. Proctor if he had insured
his goods, and he said he had not ; that he had hardly
thought it worth while to do so. My father said he had
insured his, and thought it the best policy. So Mr. Proc-
tor turned about and went with my father to the insurance
office and insured his goods. The boat started out that
night, and had only gone sixteen miles up the river when
she struck a snag and sunk to within six feet of the up-
per deck. The passengers all escaped. The next day
you father and mine returned to St. Louis to draw their
insurance money, which was promptly paid, and then the
oods belonged to the insurance company. The officers
of the insurance company told them they could have half
of the goods they would save from the wreck. So they
hired a couple of small keel-boats at St. Louis and a few
men and went to the sunken boat where they worked
about three weeks and recovered several thousand dollars'
worth of goods. After an equal division of the goods and
paying all expenses, they found that they had cleared
above $1200 each from the enterprise, not a very bad in-
vestment after all.

While I lived in the village of Vermont in 1846 we
organized a Presbyterian church with twelve members,
and held our meetings in a log school house. We were
anxious to buy a lot and build a better church ; but we
were all very poor, having no money to pay for the lot.
About that time vour father and mother came down on a

EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS. 91

visit to Mr. Heizer and family. Your father saw our
condition, and very generously gave us $100 to buy the
lot. Daniel Baughman, who lived ten miles north of
Vermont, had a nice corner lot, which I bought of him
for $65 for the church. When I left Vermont the church
numbered 110 members, and their building still stands
on the lot paid for by your honored father, William Proc-
tor.

The first money I ever earned for myself was paid me
by your father. My father had a large dog that got to
killing sheep, and so he had him killed. So I concluded
that I would skin the dog and sell the hide. I had
watched my father and his men when they skinned cat-
tle, and little as I was I thought I could skin the dog. So
I got my sister Harriet to hold the legs while I did the
skinning. So when we got him skinned I got a stick,
and we spread the hide across it, I taking hold of one
end and my sister the other, and started for the tanyard.
We then lived where Major Newton Walker now lives,
and it was about half a mile to your father's tanyard [the
present site of Mr. ITarben's vegetable garden in Lewis-
town^-Ed.], so we trudged along, having to stop every
few yards to rest, being such little tots. The dog skin was
pretty heavy, as I had left considerable of the dog with the
hide ; but we finally got to the tanyard with it, and I asked
your father how much he would give for it. He said as it
was a large skin, and as we had worked so hard to bring
it to him, he would give us a" dollar, which was twenty-
five cents above the price. So he paid me a dollar, and
I divided it with my little sister, and I do not suppose
that ever a little boy and girl went home feeling happier
than we did.

When your father commenced the tanning business in
Lewistown he took in two apprentices, Benjamin Scovil
and John Nichols, who lived with him four years. Then
John Nichols went to Galena, and from there to Los
Angeles, Cal. I saw him there seventeen years ago. He
was keeping a real estate office. He told me that he built
the first frame house in Los Angeles ; that he was its first

EAKLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

mayor, and had held the office three terms. He at one time
owned a very valuable ranch two or three miles from the
city. He was an uncle to Judge H. L. Bryant's wife.
He had a brother William, who lived five miles south of
Canton on the Lewistown road. We often talked about
the Lewistown people. We went to school together in
the old log school house in Lewistown. He told me that
he owed everything that was good about him to the moral
and religious training he received from your father and
mother. I thought if he was still living in Los Angeles
you would like to look him up.

Yours truly,

H. L. Ross.

Hbrabam lincoln.

CHAPTEK I.

CONDITIONS UNDER WHICH I FIRST BECAME ACQUAINTED
WITH ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

Editor of The Fulton Democrat: In earlier years I was
intimately acquainted with Abraham Lincoln and Peter
Cartwright, two of the old pioneers of Illinois, who lived in
Sangamon County at the same time, and but a few miles
apart, who took prominent part in molding the destiny
and giving permanent prosperity to the state and nation.
They have passed over the river and gone to their reward
some thirty years ago, but for generations will their noble
deeds and sacrifices be remembered and their sacred mem-
ory cherished deep down in the hearts of a grateful coun-
try and a generous people. There are probably but few
men now living that knew Mr. Lincoln better than I did in
the days of his obscurity, when he -was trying to make an
honest living by honest days' work. I believe that I knew
about every occupation that he was engaged in from the
time he came to New Salem until he was elected to Con-
gress. Now I find, in reading historical sketches in the
papers and magazines of the early life of Lincoln, also in
some of his histories, a good many mistakes. Some of my
old friends, and also my children and grandchildren, often
ask me what I knew about Abraham Lincoln and Peter
Cartwright, and I have decided to give the Fulton Demo-
crat a few short historical sketches of what I knew about
them in the old pioneer times. What I shall say shall be
from my own personal knowledge and from what I know to
be authentic and true; and I will endeavor to point out
some of the errors and mistakes that I have alluded to.

Before I commence the narrative of the early life of Mr.

93

94: EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

Lincoln it is likely some of the readers of the Democrat
would like to know how I happened to become so well ac-
quainted with such a distinguished person as Mr. Lincoln ;
and so I will have to make some explanation, and in doing
so will have to state some circumstances connected with my
own early life and occupations.

My father, Ossian M. Ross, settled in Havana in 1828.
He kept the ferry across the Illinois river, built and kept
the Havana Hotel, carried on a large farm, was a merchant
and the postmaster, and in addition to those things he had
the mail route from Springfield to Lewistown. The mail
had to be carried twice a week on horseback, and I chose,
rather than to work on the farm or in the store, to carry the
mail. The postoffices between Lewistown and Springfield
were Havana, New Salem, Athens and Sangamontown.
Mr. Lincoln was postmaster at New Salem, where the mail
had to be changed four times a week, and I put up at the
log tavern where Mr. Lincoln boarded, and we partook of
the cornbread, bacon and eggs, which were our common
fare, at the same table. I would often assist Mr. Lincoln
in his store and in sorting over the mail, and he would often
send packages by me to his customers along the road ; so
my business required me to be with him a part of four days
in every week. After he commenced the practice of law I
got. him to fix up my title papers to some land that came to
me from my father's estate ; and I have often met him
when he was attending the circuit court in Mason county.
The first court held in that county was at Havana ; I was
keeping the Havana Hotel at that time. There was no
court house in the county, and the bar room of the hotel
was used for a court room and some of my bed rooms for
jury rooms. I remember Mr. Lincoln being engaged by
Prank Low of Havana to prosecute Mr. Coon for slander.
Mr. Lincoln got a judgment against Coon in favor of Low
for some $500.

So the readers of The Democrat will see that I had a
pretty good opportunity to learn something about Mr.
Lincoln. I was also well acquainted with William H.
Herndon, who was his law partner for twenty years, and
who after his death wrote a history of his life. Mr. Hern-

f.lli

ABBA IT AM LINCOLN. 95

don's father kept the Herndon Hotel in Springfield, and
when I carried the mail I had to stop there two nights in
each week. William and myself being near the same age
(I being one year the older), we were a great deal together
whenever I was in Springfield; we were also both in the
Jacksonville college at the same time, in the same classes,
and were roommates ; and so I had a pretty good opportun-
ity to know something about him. As I proceed with the
narrative of what I know of the early life of Mr. Lincoln,
I may also state what I know of the early life of Herndon,
and point out some of the mistakes he has made in his
" Historv of Lincoln."

CHAPTER II.

LINCOLN THE GEOCERY CLERK. HOW HE QUALIFIED HIM-
SELF FOR SURVEYOR.

The first time I ever saw or heard of Abraham Lincoln
was in 1832. I had stopped over night at Jack Arm-
strong's, who lived on a farm five miles northwest of New
Salem. I there saw a young man whom I had never met be-
fore, and asked him who he was, and he said his name was
Abe Lincoln, and that he was working for his father. He
was tall and slender, and was dressed in common home-
made jeans, about the same kind of goods that the
majority of the young men wore at that time about the
same as I wore myself. The next time I saw Lincoln, to
become acquainted with him, was at the log tavern at New
Salem, kept by James Rutledge. I was carrying the mail
from Lewistown to Springfield, and put up with the Rut-
ledge tavern where Mr. Lincoln was boarding. He was
at that time a clerk in the store of Samuel Hill, a mer-
chant of New Salem. Mr. Lincoln had been to New Or-
leans with a flat-boat load of produce, and Mr. Hill had
sent by him 100 barrels of flour that was ground at the
water mill at New Salem. Mr. Lincoln sold the flour at

96 EAE.LY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

a good price, and was so prompt in paying the money,
and gave such good satisfaction, that on his return Mr.
Hill made him a clerk in his store. Mr. Hill had the
largest stock of goods in ISTew Salem, and also kept the
postoffice. Mr. Lincoln, I observed, was always very at-
tentive t-o business, and was kind and obliging to the cus-
tomers of the store, always having pleasant things to say
to them ; and they had so much confidence in his honesty
that they preferred to trade with him rather than with Mr.
Hill or the other clerks. I noticed that this was particu-
larly true of the women customers ; they would often say
that they liked to trade with Mr. Lincoln, for they believed
that he was honest and would tell them the truth about the
goods.

I went into the store one day to buy a pair of buckskin
gloves and asked him if he had a pair that would fit me.
He threw a pair on the counter. "There is a pair of dog-
skin gloves that I think will fit you, and you can have them
for seventy-five cents." When he called them dogskin
gloves I was surprised, as I had never heard of such a thing
before. At that time no factory-made gloves had ever
been brought into the country, and all the gloves and mit-
tens that were worn were made by hand and by the women
of the neighborhood, and were made from tanned deer
skins, and the Indians usually did the tanning. A large
buckskin, Indian dressed, could be bought at that time for
from fifty to seventy-five cents. So I said to Mr. Lincoln,
"How do you know they are dogskin gloves ?" I believe
that he thought my question was a little impudent, and
it rasped him somewhat that I had the audacity to question
his word. "Well, sir," said he, "I will tell you how I
know they are dogskin gloves. Jack Clery's dog killed
Tom Watkin's sheep, and Tom Watkin's boy killed the
dog, and old John Mounts tanned the dogskin, and Sally
Spears made the gloves, and that is how I know they are
dogskin gloves." So I asked no more questions about the
gloves, but paid the six bits and took them ; and I can truly
say that I have worn buckskin and dogskin gloves from time
to time for sixty years since then, and have never found

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 97

a pair that did me the service that those did I got of Mr.
Lincoln.

I have understood that Mr. Lincoln got $20 a month
for clerking in Mr. Hill's store, which was considered
good wages at that time, although he had to pay $2 a week
for his board.

While Mr. Lincoln was clerking in the store for $20 a
month Mr. Hill gave him the privilege of going out to
work in the time of harvest, where he could earn from $1
to $1.25 a day and his board; and when the harvest was
over he would take him back in the store again.

In the fall of 1835 my brother Lewis was a student in
the Jacksonville college. I had to take him back to col-
lege after the vacation, and there met many of the boys
who had returned after their two months' rest. Among
these was Richard Yates, afterwards the great "war gov-
ernor" of Illinois. Most of these boys had been at work
during the vacation -most of them on their father's farm,
while some of them had taught school, and others clerked
in the stores. Among them was a young man named
William Green, who said he had been at home helping his
father with the harvest. While there a young man named
Abe Lincoln had come out from New Salem to help with
the harvest. He said Lincoln could pitch more hay than
any man his father had. When Lincoln found out that
young Green had been to college he asked him if he had
brought his books home with him. He said he had never
had the advantage of an education, and said he would like
to study grammar and arithmetic, and asked if Green
would assist him, and he told him that he would. Mr.
Lincoln said that the county surveyor at Springfield, Mr.
Calhoun, had been talking of appointing him deputy sur-
veyor if he would qualify himself for the place. He was
very anxious to get the position, as there was a good deal
of surveying to be done around New Salem. So Lincoln
would get up early in the morning and feed the horses,
and then with the help of Green would go at the grammar
and arithmetic until breakfast was ready. At night they
would again resume their studies. After Lincoln re-

98 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

turned to the store in New Salem, Green would take his
books when he went to town, and they would study to-
gether under the shade of the trees. Green said he never
saw another person who could learn as fast as Lincoln did.
It is a fact that Mr. Lincoln did qualify himself and was
appointed deputy surveyor; and he was one of the best
surveyors they ever had in that part of the country.

This William Green in 1875 moved to Warren county,
Illinois, some five miles from Avon, and for several years
was president of the Avon Agricultural Society. Not
long after I visited him, and he told me that he had gone
to Washington to see Lincoln while he was president. He
said Lincoln was glad to see him, throwing his arms about
his neck and showing him many marks of kindness while
he remained in the city. Before he came away Mr. Lin-
coln introduced him to some of his cabinet officers, telling
them that he was the young man who taught him grammar
and arithmetic in his father's barn.

I have not heard from Mr. Green in eighteen years ; but
if he is still living he can tell more of the early life of
Abraham Lincoln than can be found in any of the papers,
magazines or histories.

CHAPTEK III.

SOME ERRORS IN HEENDON's " LIFE OF LINCOLN."

ANNE RUTLEDGE, LINCOLN'S FIRST SWEETHEART, AND
HER UNTIMELY DEATH.

The town of New Salem, where I became acquainted
with Lincoln, was laid out in 1829 by John Cameron and
George Rutledge on a high piece of ground overlooking the
Sangamon river, and was surrounded by fine farming coun-
try. It was twenty miles northwest of Springfield ; had
some fifty houses, about one-third frame and the balance
log; there were four stores, postofnce, log tavern, a black-
smith and wagon maker's shop, a carding machine, and a
water mill on the Sangamon river.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 99

A few months after Mr. Lincoln took the postoffice, find-
ing that the revenue would not support him, he took a
young man named William Berry in partnership with
him and opened a general country store. The stock con-
sisted chiefly of groceries, but they also had many notions,
hats, mittens, etc. The entire stock could not have been
worth over $1200. The charge has been made that Mr.
Lincoln took out a license and kept a saloon in the store.
Indeed, Judge Douglas in his debate with Lincoln occa-
sionally charged Lincoln that he had been engaged in the
saloon business. Lincoln's reply was that he had never
kept a saloon, and that he had never sold a glass of liquor
over a counter ; but that if he ever had run a saloon, and
Douglas had lived in that neighborhood, he would un-
doubtedly have been his best customer.

I am sure that no liquor was sold by the drink in their
store while Mr. Lincoln had an interest in it. I- had occa-
sion to be in the store very often while I was carrying the
mail, and had a much better opportunity to know what was
going on there than did William H. Herndon, who wrote
a story of Lincoln's life, but who lived twenty miles away
from ^ew Salem. I think that it is likely they did sell
whisky by the quart and gallon, as was done in -every ^
pioneer store. Indeed, whisky was as common an article
of barter as was coffee, sugar or tea. The pioneers were
subject to much sickness, caused by malarial conditions
fever and ague, typhoid fever, etc. A favorite remedy was
bitters made from barks and roots and whisky. At that
time the co'untry was full of poisonous snakes, and it was
a common thing for people to be bitten. The one remedy
in those days was to fill up the patient with whisky. The
whisky used at that time was the pure juice of the corn or
rye, and could be bought at fifty cents a gallon. We had
none of that vile, poisonous stuff that is now made from
drugs and kept for sale in the saloons.

In all my acquaintance with Mr. Lincoln I never knew :
him to take a drink of liquor of any kind, nor use tobacco
in any form, or ever to use profane language. His earliest
biographer, W. II. Herndon, claimed that Lincoln did

100 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

drink whisky and swear. It is claimed that the swearing
was done in New Orleans, where he had gone with a flat
boat full of produce, and where he attended an auction sale
of negroes and saw 7 a young woman two-thirds white being
sold. * It was then that Mr. Lincoln expressed his indigna-
tion by an oath. The time when it was claimed that he
drank liquor was when he was said to have lifted a barrel
of whiskv to his lips and drank out of the bung hole. I

v -- O

am inclined to believe that my old college chum and room-
mate, W. H. Herndon, drew largely on his imagination
when he told these stories.

At this time Mr. Lincoln boarded at the Rutledge tavern,
at which I also put up, as often as I went to New Salem.
It was a hewed log house, two stories high, with four rooms
above and four below. It had two chimneys with large
fireplaces, and not a stove in the house. The proprietor
was James Rutledge, a man of more than ordinary ability,
and, with his wife, remarkably kind and hospitable. They
had a large family of eight or nine children, and among
them was their daughter Anne, celebrated in song and story
as Lincoln's sweetheart. She was two or three years
younger than Lincoln, of about medium size, weighing
some 125 pounds. She was very handsome and attractive,
as well as industrious and sweet-spirited. I seldom saw
her when she was not engaged in some occupation knit-
ting, sewing, waiting on table, etc. I think she did the
sewing for the entire family. Lincoln was boarding at the
tavern and fell deeply in love with Anne, and she was no
less in love with him. They were engaged to be married,
but they had been putting off the wedding for a while, as he
wanted to accumulate a little more property and she wanted
to go longer to school.

Before the time came when they were to be married.
Miss Anne was taken down with typhoid fever and lay
desperately ill four weeks. Lincoln was an anxious and
constant watcher at her bedside. The sickness ended in
her death, and young Lincoln was heartbroken and pros-
trated. The histories have not exaggerated his pitiful
grief. For many days he was not able to attend to busi-

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 101

ness. I believe his very soul was wrapped up in that lovely
girl. It was his first love the holiest thing in life the
love that cannot die. The deepest gloom and melancholy
settled over his mind. He would often say to his friends :
" My heart is buried in the grave with that dear girl." He
would often go and sit by her grave and read a little pocket
Testament he carried with him. What did he read ? I
know not ; but I'll warrant you that it was " Let not your
hearts be troubled/' or John's vision on Patmos with Anne
among the white-robed throng in the land where sickness
and death are unknown. One stormy winter's night he
was at a friend's house, and as the sleet and rain came down
on the roof he sat with bowed head and the tears trickled
down his face. His friends begged him to control his sor-
row. " I cannot," he moaned, " while storm and darkness
are on her grave." His friends did everything that kind-
ness could suggest, but in vain, to soothe his sorrow.

Anne Rutledge was of gentle blood, she would have made
him a noble wife in his humbler earlier years and in the
imperial later life. Miss Anne's brother David took a
course in Jacksonville College, and then went to Lewistown
and studied law in the office of Lewis W. Ross and John P.
Boice. He married Miss Elizabeth Simms, daughter of
Colonel Reuben Simms, and he afterwards moved to
Petersburg and opened a law office. He was a bright and
promising man, and no doubt would have made his mark
in state and nation but for his untimely death. He was
buried by the side of his sister Anne in the E~ew Salem
cemetery' * &r+ &&T^-&V?^*- de^^y

His widow married C. W. Andrus, one of the prominent
merchants of Havana. Major Newton Walker, L. W.
Ross and James W. Simms all married sisters to Mrs.
David Rutledge.

The Rutledge family stood high in the Sangamon coun-
try. Anne's father was a South Carolinian of high birth.
One of his family signed the Declaration of Independence ;
another was chief justice of the supreme court under Wash-
ington's appointment, and a third was a conspicuous leader
in Congress. So Lincoln's boyhood love was of high and
gentle birth.

102 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

CHAPTEK IV.

LINCOLN'S SECOND SWEETHEART, MARY OWENS. HIS LET-
TER IN REGARD TO THE BREAKING OF THE ENGAGE-
MENT. FIRST CIRCUS OF PIONEER DAYS.

One year after the sad death of Anne Rutledge, Mr.
Lincoln again fell in love. Miss Mary Owens was his
second sweetheart. She came from Kentucky on a visit
to a married sister who lived near New Salem. In many
respects she was very different from Anne Rutledge. She
was older and larger ; she was finely educated, and had heen
brought up in the most refined society, and she dressed
much finer than any of the ladies who lived about New
Salem. Her fashionable silk dresses, kid shoes and leg-
horn hat were in striking contrast with the calico dress,
calfskin shoes and straw bonnet that Anne had worn.

Miss Owens was in the habit of making frequent visits
to the postoifice for letters from her Kentucky home, and
that was where Lincoln first became acquainted with her.
It was not very long until he began to be a frequent visitor
at her sister's home, and these visits continued until her
return to Kentucky. It became the gossip of the neigh-
borhood that they were to be married. When the gossip
was repeated to Lincoln by a friend he replied : "If ever
that girl comes back to New Salem I am going to marry
her in about three years." Miss Mary did, in due time,
return, but Mr. Lincoln did not marry her, and I presume
the reader will want to know the secret of it all. They
did not agree, and she would not consent to the marriage.
On this point Miss Mary is reported to have said that
there were many things about Mr. Lincoln that she liked,
and many other things she did not like, and the things
she did not like overbalanced the things she did like. "I
could not help admiring Mr. Lincoln," she said, "for his
honesty, truthfulness and sincerity and goodness of heart ;
but I think he was a little too presumptuous when he told

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 103

his friend that if I ever came back to New Salem he was
going to marry, me. That is a bargain that it takes two
to make ; and then his training and bringing up had been
so different from my own and his awkward and uncouth
behavior was most disagreeable. He was lacking in those
little links which make up the chain of woman's happiness.
At least that was my judgment. He was not the ideal
husband that I had pictured to myself that I could love,
and so, when he asked me to become his wife, I told him
no."

Now I will give Mr. Lincoln's side of the story. He
had a dear lady friend whom he confided in and advised
with in many of his private affairs. She had learned
that he was engaged to Miss Mary and that the engage-
ment had been broken off, and she wanted to know the
cause. So he wrote her a letter, and it is presumable that
he did not expect the letter to go out of her possession, un-
less it went into the fire ; but as time went on it did get out
of her possession and the following is a copy of it :

" SPEINGFIELD, April 1st, 1838.

" Dear Madam: It was in the autumn of 1836 that a
married lady of my acquaintance, and who was a great
friend of mine, being about to pay a visit to her father
and other relatives residing in Kentucky, proposed to me
that on her return she would bring a sister of hers with
her on condition that I would engage to become her broth-
er-in-law. With all convenient dispatch I, of course, ac-
cepted the proposal, for you know that I would not have
done otherwise had I really been averse to it ; but, pri-
vately between you and me, I was most confoundedly well
pleased with the project. I had seen the said sister some
three years before ; thought her intelligent and agreeable,
and saw no good objection to plodding life through hand
in hand with her. Time passed on. The lady took her
journey and in due time returned, her sister in company,
sure enough. This astonished me a little, for it appeared
to me that her coming so readily showed that she was a trifle
too willing. But on reflection it occurred to me that she

104 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

might have been prevailed on by her married sister to come
without anything concerning me ever having been men-
tioned to her ; and so I concluded that if no other objection
presented itself I would consent to waive this. All this
occurred to me on hearing of her arrival in the neighbor-
hood, for, be it remembered, I had not yet seen her except
about three years previous, as above mentioned. In a few
days we had an interview, and, although I had seen her
before, she did not look as my imagination had pictured
her. I knew she was over size, but she now appeared a
fair match for Falstaff. I know she was called an old
maid, and I felt no doubt of the truth of at least half of
the appellation. But now, when I beheld her I could not
for my life avoid thinking of my mother; and this not
from her withered features, for her skin was too full of
fat to permit of it contracting into wrinkles ; but from
her want of teeth and weather-beaten appearance in
general, and from a kind of notion that ran in my head
that nothing could have commenced at the size of infancy
and reached her present bulk in less than thirty-five or
forty years. In short, I was not at all pleased with her ;
but what could I do ? I had told her sister I would take
her for better or for worse ; and made it a point of honor
and conscience in all things to stick to my word, especially
if others had been induced to act on it, which in this case
I had no doubt they had. I was now fully convinced that
no other man on earth would have her, and hence the con-
clusion that they were bent on holding me to my bargain.
Well, thought I, I have said it, and be the consequences
what they may be it shall not be my fault if I fail to do it.
At once I determined to consider her my wife, and, this
done, all my powers of discovery were put to work in
search of perfections in her which might be fairly set off
against her defects. I tried to imagine her handsome,
which but for her unfortunate corpulency was actually
true ; exclusive of this no woman that I had ever seen had
a fairer face. I also tried to convince myself that the
mind was much more to be valued than the person ; and
in this she was not inferior, as I could discover, to any

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 105

with whom. I had been acquainted. Shortly after this,
without coming to any positive understanding with her,
I set out for Vandalia to take my seat in the legislature
to which I had been elected. During my stay there I had
letters from her which did not change my opinion of her
intellect or intention ; but, on the contrary, confirmed it in
both. All this while, although I was fixed firm as the
surge-repelling rock in my resolution, I found that I was
continually repenting the rashness that had led me to
make it. After my return home I saw nothing to change
my opinion of her in any particulars. She was the same,
and so was I. I now spent my time in planning how I
might get along in life after my contemplated change of
circumstances should have taken place, and how I might
procrastinate the evil day for a time, which I really
dreaded, as much, perhaps more, than an Irishman does
the halter. After all my suffering upon this deeply in-
teresting subject, here I am wholly, unexpectedly and com-
pletely out of the scrape. And now I want to know if
you can guess how I got out of it out clear in every sense
of the term no violation of word, honor or conscience ?
I do not believe you can guess, and so I might as well tell
you at once. As the lawyer says, it was done in the manner
following, to wit : After I had delayed the matter as long
as I thought I could in honor do, I concluded I might as
well bring it to a consummation without further delay,
and so I mustered my resolution and made the proposal
to her direct: but, shocking to relate, she answered No.
At first I supposed she did so through an affectation of
modesty, which I thought but ill-becoming her under the
peculiar circumstances of her case. But on my renewal
of the charge I found that she repelled it with greater
firmness than before. I tried it again and again, but with
the same success, or rather, with the same want of success.
I finally was forced to give it up, at which very unexpect-
edly I found myself mortified almost beyond endurance.
I was mortified, it seems to me, in a hundred different ways.
My vanity was deeply wounded by the reflection that I
had been too stupid to discover her intentions, and at the

106 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

same time never doubting that I understood them per-
fectly; and, also, that she whom I had taught myself to
believe of all women would have been the last to reject
me with all my greatness. And, to cap the whole, I then
for the first time began to suspect that I was really a little
bit in love with her. But let it all go. I'll try and out-
live it. Others have been made fools of by the girls, but
this can never with truth be said of me. I most emphati-
cally in this instance made a fool of myself. I have now
come to the conclusion never again to think of marrying,
and for this reason : I can never be satisfied with anyone
who would be blockheaded enough to have me.

" Your sincere friend,

"A. LINCOLN."

The above mentioned Miss Mary Owens was afterwards
married to a highly respectable gentleman and became the
mother of five children. She died July 4, 1877. Speak-
ing of Mr. Lincoln a short time before her death she said
of him : " He was a man with a heart full of kindness
and a head full of sense."

In the summer of 1833 the first circus and menagerie
ever known in the West was billed to be in Springfield. I
was then carrying the mail from Springfield to Lewistown,
and Mr. Lincoln was keeping the postoffice at New Salem.
The putting up of the circus bills created intense excite-
ment in all the Springfield country. Thousands of the
pioneers, as well as myself, had never seen such a show.
Although I lived forty miles away I was determined, if
possible, to go to Springfield and see the wonderful parade
(advertised to take place on the streets at 1.2 o'clock), and
also to see the show. I started at 12 o'clock the preceding
night on horseback, and got to New Salem just at sunup
the next morning. I went to the Rutledge tavern to get
my breakfast and have my horse fed, and was told by Mr.
Eutledge that Mr. Lincoln had gone to the country the day
before to do some surveying, and he had not returned ; and
that Bill Berry, his partner, had been to a dance the night
before, and that it did not break up until near daylight,
and that Bill had filled up pretty well on eggnogg, and he

ABIiAHAM LINCOLN. 107

feared I would have some trouble in waking him up to
change the mail so I could go on with my journey. After
breakfast I found Bill in a profound slumber in a little
room adjoining the postoffice. For half an hour I pounded
at the door, and hallooed and yelled, but all in vain. It
would have taken Gabriel's trump to have waked him up.
So I had to throw my mail-bags across my horse and pursue
my journey or I would miss that wonderful parade.

At Sangamontown (seven miles beyond New Salem) I
told the postmaster about my trouble at New Salem and
asked him to keep the New Salem mail until my return
next day, when I would carry it back. He did so, and I
hurried on, and got to Springfield in time to see the parade
and show. There was a mighty host of people in town who
had come from far and near. Some had come as far as
twenty miles in ox teams, fetching their entire families.
There probably has never been so much excitement in
Springfield from the time it was laid out as a town until
now, except upon two other events. The first was when
Lincoln the year before had piloted the little steamboat,
the Talisman, up the Sangamon river and landed her at the
bank near Springfield. The people believed that the San-
gamon river would always be navigable for steamboats, and
were wild with excitement and enthusiasm over the glorious
outlook for the town's assured prosperity. The other great
excitement was when the State capital was moved from
Vandalia to Springfield. I may more fully allude to these
other two events in a future sketch.

There were two things connected with the show that as-
tonished the people most wonderfully. One was the mon-
ster anaconda, a serpent eighteen feet long, and the other
was the young lady that stood upon her feet on the back of
a horse and rode at full speed around the ring. If there
was anything that would bring fear and terror to the early
settlers it was the sight of a big snake. They had seen so
many cases where people had been bitten by snakes, and
the terrible sufferings they had endured, that they had a
good reason to abhor and dread a snake. So when the
showman took the monster from the iron cage, and it

108 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

crawled upon his shoulder, with its hideous head extended
far above him, and with its forked tongue darting out six
inches, and its baneful eyes that looked like two balls of
fire, the big audience was transfixed with terror. But when
the showman commenced to carry the hideous thing about
the ring close to the people, the women commenced scream-
ing and the children crying in chorus, and the men com-
menced to yell for the snake to be shut up in the cage. And
so the showman had to stop the horrid performance and put
the anaconda back into the iron cage, or there would have
been a general stampede from the big tent. But the people
cautiously thereafter approached the cage to gaze upon the
dreadful snake.

The people were entranced with the spangled young
woman that rode at full speed about the ring, standing upon
the horse's back. It was a common sight to see women and
girls driving horses while they held the plow, or see them
on horseback on a grist of corn going many miles to the
water mills. The pioneer girls and women, as a rule, were
expert horse-women on a side-saddle, or even bare-back.
But when it came to a pretty girl standing on a horse going
at full speed, it took their breath and made their hearts
stand still. 'No mortal of them could ever have believed
that a girl could do a thing like that until they saw it.
There had been no rain in the Springfield country for sev-
eral weeks, and the black dust lay deep in all the roads and
streets. The big crowds kept it stirred up, and the women
and children in their holiday clothes were a sight to behold.

I learned that Lincoln had got back to ISTew Salem a few
hours after I passed through, and was a little displeased
because I had not left the mail, not knowing the cause.
With every man, woman and child that could pay his way
in, Mr. Lincoln went to the show. After the show was over
I met Lincoln on the street, and as we met I noticed a little
scowl on his face. He said to me : " How did it happen
that you came through ]$few Salem and did not have the
mail changed ? You might get me into trouble about this.
Suppose the postmaster at Springfield should report the
fact to the department at Washington that the mail was not

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 109

opened at New Salem, but was brought on to Springfield,
what would happen to me ?"

Then I told him the whole story, how I had got up at 12
o'clock at night so that I could get to Springfield to see the
show come into town, and that I had never seen a show, and
how anxious I was to see it, and how hard I had tried to get
Bill Berry up to open the mail, and that I had not brought
the mail to Springfield but had left it at Sangamontown
and would carry it back to New Salem in the morning.
Then Mr. Lincoln in a kind voice said : " O, well, in that
case it is all right. Bill Berry ought to have got up and
opened the mail for you." Then he said : " I am going
home this evening, and I will stop and get the mail and
carry it home with me," which I found next day that he had
done.

When I met Lincoln I noticed that he had bought a new
suit of clothes and a new hat, and while he stood talking
with me I had a good opportunity to scrutinize his whole
wardrobe, and I believe I can remember every article of his
clothing as well as if I had only seen it yesterday. The
coat and pants were of brown linen and the vest of white
marseilles with dots of flowers in it. The shirt was open
front with small pleats buttoned up with small ivory but-
tons. The collar was wide and folded over the collar of his
coat. He had for a necktie a black silk handkerchief with
a narrow fringe to it, and it was tied in a double bow knot.
He wore a pair of low shoes with a narrow ribbon fastened
on each side of the shoes, and they were tied in a double
bow knot over the instep. He wore a buckeye hat, made
of splints from the buckeye tree, and much after the
fashion of straw hats. These buckeye hats were much
worn in those times, and cost twice as much as the straw
hats, or $1.25 to $1.50 each. So the reader may see how
Mr. Lincoln must have looked when he was dressed up for
the circus.

When I got back to New Salem next morning I found
that Lincoln had given the people their mail, and that Bill
Berry had got sober and was very sorry for his misconduct,
and that Lincoln had washed off the Springfield black dust
and was amiable and happy as ever.

EAKLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

CHAPTER V.
LINCOLN'S TKIP ON A FLATBOAT TO NEW ORLEANS. HIS

VISIT TO A SLAVE MARKET, AND HIS AVOWED HATRED AND

INTENTION RP:GARDING THE INSTITUTION OF SLAVERY.

In getting up these little sketches of the life of Mr. Lin-
coln it is not my intention to go into a general history of his
life, for after he was elected to the Legislature in 1834 his
grand and noble life was an open book and is known and
read by all men, but to speak of those little things that led
him up step by step to that honorable and noble life. It
may be an encouragement for many young men to follow
his example.

The first thing he undertook after coming to Illinois,
worth mentioning, and that started him on his way to the
White House, was his trip down the Sangamon river on a
flat boat loaded down with produce. He was twenty-one
years old, dressed in buckskin pants, butternut colored
jeans coat, checked shirt and straw hat. If a casual ob-
server had been told that the young man was starting for the
White House at Washington he would probably have said
such a thing was impossible. But nevertheless such were
the facts of the case, for inside of that checked shirt and
jeans coat was an honest, generous and noble heart ; inside
of that straw hat was a head filled with good, solid horse
sense, and the good Lord had blessed him with an indomi-
table will, a sound body, a good pair of eyes and a good
memory. He commenced using his eyes and memory as
soon as the boat started down the stream. He spied out
snags, sandbars, overhanging trees and other obstructions
to navigation and remembered them, which secured him
the position of pilot on a steamboat that ran up the Sanga-
mon river the next year. His boat floated down the Sanga-
mon, Illinois and Mississippi rivers to ISTew Orleans, where
he sold boat and produce for a good price. He remained
there long enough to visit the slave market and to see hus-
bands and wives, parents and children torn from each

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. Ill

other's arms to be separated perhaps forever. These things
he also remembered, and when turning away he said to his
companion, te If ever I get a chance I will strike that
thing, and I will strike it hard " meaning the institution
of slavery. As time rolled on his opportunity to strike
came and the slaves were freed !

Tie went to the steamboat landing to take passage for St.
Louis, but instead of paying $40 for a passage and spend-
ing his time drinking, smoking and playing cards as the
other young men did, he went to the captain and asked him
if he wanted another hand on the boat. The captain told
him to come around the next morning and he could have
work, so he got his passage free and made a nice little sum
of money besides. When he got to St. Louis he found the
Illinois river steamboat had just left* and that there would
not be another one going for several days. He left his
baggage with his partner and went across the country to
Coles county to visit his parents, but did not stay long, as
he was anxious to return to ISTew Salem and turn over the
money to the man who had shipped the produce. That
transaction showed the people that he was capable and hon-
est and he immediately received employment as a clerk and
was afterwards appointed postmaster and county surveyor.
This was another step towards the White House.

The next spring he was looking over a newspaper and
saw that a steamboat was to come up the Illinois river with
the intention of running up the Sangamon as far as Spring-
field. Learning what time she would reach Beardstown
Mr. Lincoln set out afoot for that place, and when the
steamboat Talisman landed and threw out her gang plank,
he was the first person to step on board. He offered his
services to pilot the boat up the Sangamon river, telling
the captain that he had navigated that stream in a flat boat
and knew where all the obstructions were, so he was secured
to pilot the boat to Springfield and back for $50. The run-
ning of a steamboat on the Sangamon river caused a won-
derful excitement in Springfield, and, in fact, in all the
country round about, for at that time no railroads had been
built and the merchants and farmers had to haul their goods

112 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

and produce to and from St. Louis, a distance of ninety-
five miles. It took from ten days to two weeks to make a
trip, but now they were to have a market right at home.

When the legislature had passed a law a few years before
declaring the Sangamon a navigable stream, little was
thought of it. ISTow Lincoln had taken a flatboat load of
produce down the river and had brought a steamboat up,
which demonstrated the fact to a certainty that Sangamon
river was a navigable stream. Great crowds of people
came from all parts of the country to see her, as few had
ever seen a steamboat. She laid at the wharf near Spring-
field a week and during that time Lincoln was the hero of
the occasion. He took advantage of this by getting ac-
quainted with the people, making several speeches and
shaking hands with every one. He got acquainted with
:r ore people during that one week than he oovild have met
in three months in traveling around the country. It was
on this occasion that Mr. Lincoln's friends brought him out
for the legislature. There was another circumstance con-
nected with the running of the steamboat up the Saiigaiuon
that benefited Mr. Lincoln. It induced almost every man
who had land above high water to have it laid out in town
lots, and Mr. Lincoln got several fat jobs of surveying.

Mr. Lincoln had become very popular among the people
because he had been so fair and honorable in all his deal-
ings, and he would no doubt have been elected to the legis-
lature had not the Democrats put up grand old Peter Cart-
wright, the Methodist circuit rider and camp-meeting ora-
tor. Cartwright had the advantage because he had
preached in every church and school house and at every
camp-meeting in the county and had lived in the county six
years longer than Lincoln. He also had the advantage in
age, being forty-seven years old, while Lincoln was but
twenty-three. Cartwright had served a term in the legis-
lature and was one of the best members in that body, there-
fore the people sent him back by a small majority over Lin-
coin. That was the only time Lincoln was ever beaten for
office, and the only time Cartwright was ever beaten for
office was bv Lincoln in 1846, when they were running for

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 113

Congress. It was unfortunate for the people that both of
these noble men could not have been elected. Peter Cart-
wright was a simon pure Andrew Jackson Democrat and
Abraham Lincoln was a Henry Clay Whig.

CHAPTEK VI.

THE FIRST STEP TO THE WHITE HOUSE. THE " SHIRT-
SLEEVE COURT IN THE CORN FIELD." MR. LINCOLN'S

REFUSAL OF A WELL-EARNED FEE.

In my last week's sketch of Lincoln I wanted to empha-
size the fact that his trip to New Orleans in a flatboat, when
he first saw in that city the horrors of slavery, was the first
round in the ladder that led him to the president's chair.
If he had not gone to New Orleans he would never have
seen husbands and wives and parents and little children
separated forever at the auction block, and it is not likely
that his great heart Avould ever have been fired as it was
with a deathless hatred of " the infamy of infamies."

Then if he had not gone with a flatboat down the Sanga-
mon en route to New Orleans, he would never have piloted
that steamboat up the Sangamon to Springfield. It was
this incident that put him on the track for the legislature.
That step logically led him on to Congress, then to fight
with Douglas for a seat in the senate, then to the trium-
phant march to the presidency. It was all step by step on
the ladder of fame from the flatboat to the president's
chair.

I had a quarter section of land, two miles south of Ma-
comb, that came to me from my father's estate. It was
a fine quarter, but there was a little defect in the title,
which could be remedied by the evidence of a man named
Hagerty, who lived six miles west of Springfield and who
knew the facts I wished to prove. I had noticed in the
papers that court was in session at Springfield, and as court
convened but twice a year I immediately started for that
plaeo, which was sixty miles from my home. I found my

114 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

witness and took him with me. On arriving at Springfield
we went directly to Mr. Lincoln's office, which was over a
store on the west side of the square. I think the office was
about fourteen feet square and contained two tables, two
book cases and four or five chairs, while the floor was per-
fectly bare. I told Mr. Lincoln my business and showed
him my title papers, which he looked over and then re-
marked to me, " I am sorry to have to tell you that you are
a little too late, for this court adjourned this morning and
does not convene again for six months, and Judge Thomas
has gone home. He lives on his farm a mile east of the
public square, but," said he, " we will go and see him and
see if anything can be done for you." I told him I would
get a carriage and we would drive out, but he said, " No ; I
can walk if you can." I said I would just as soon walk as
ride, and before we started he pulled off his coat and laid it
on a chair, taking from the pocket a large bandana silk
handkerchief to wipe the perspiration from his face, as it
was a very warm day in August. He struck off across
the public square in his shirt sleeves with the red handker-
chief in one hand and my bundle of papers in the other
while my witness and I followed.

We soon came to Judge Thomas' residence, which was a
one-story frame house. Mr. Lincoln knocked at the door
at that time there were no door bells and the judge's wife
came to the door. Mr. Lincoln asked if the judge was at
home and she replied that he had gone to the north part of
the farm, where they had a tenant house, to help his men
put up a corn crib. She said if we went the main road it
would be about a half-mile, but we could cut across the corn
field and it would not be more than a quarter of a mile.
Mr. Lincoln said if she would show us the path we would
take the short cut, so she came out of the house and showed
us where a path struck off across the field from their barn.
We followed this path, Mr. Lincoln in the lead, and myself
and witness following in Indian file, and soon came to
where the judge and his men were raising a log house about
12x20 feet in size, which was to serve as a corn crib and
hog house. Mr. Lincoln told Judge Thomas how I had

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 115

come from Fulton county and brought my witness to town
just after court had adjourned, and said he thought he
would come out and see if anything could be done. The
judge looked over the title papers and said he guessed they
could fix it up, so he swore my witness, with whom he was
acquainted, and procuring a pen and ink from his tenant
fixed the papers.

The judge and all the balance of us were in our shirt
sleeves, and Mr. Lincoln remarked to the judge that it was
a kind of a shirt-sleeve court. " Yes," replied the judge,
" a shirt-sleeve court in a corn field." After the business
had been transacted Mr. Lincoln asked Judge Thomas if
he did not want some help in rolling up the logs, and the
judge replied that there were two logs that were pretty
heavy and he would like to have us help roll them up. So
before we left we helped roll these logs logs up, Mr. Lincoln
steering one end and the judge the other. I offered to pay
the judge for taking the deposition of my witness, but he
said he guessed I had helped with the raising enough to pay
for that and would take nothing for his work. When we
got back to Lincoln's office in town I think we had walked
at least three miles. Mr. Lincoln put my papers in a large
envelope with the name " Stuart & Lincoln " printed at the
top. " ISTow," said he, " when you go home put those
papers on record and you will have a good title to your
land."

I then took out my pocket book to pay him and supposed
he would charge me about $10, as I knew he was always
moderate in his charges. " Now, Mr. Lincoln," said I,
" how much shall I pay you for this work and the long walk
through the hot sun and dust ?" He paused for a moment
and took the big silk handkerchief and wiped the perspira-
tion off that was running down his face, and said : *' I
guess I will not charge you anything for that. I will let
it go on the old score." When he said that it broke me all
up and I could not keep the tears from running down my
face, for I could recall many instances where he had been
so good and kind to me when I was carrying the mail ; then
for him to say he would charge me nothing for this work

116 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

was more kindness than I could stand. I suppose that
what he meant by the old score was that I had occasionally
helped him in his store and postoffice and my father had
assisted him some when he got the postoffice.

Now, there is something a little remarkable in the his-
tory of those two men who worked together rolling up those
two logs. It showed that the prominent men of that time
were not too proud to engage in common labor. Judge
Jesse B. Thomas, who was engaged at one end of the log,
had served as representative in the Territorial Legislature
of Illinois, had been twice elected to the United States
Senate, once as a supreme judge, and was a mem-
ber of the constitutional convention that framed the
first constitution of Illinois, and had done more
and had exerted a greater influence toward making the
State of Illinois a slave .state than any other man.
While the man at the other end of the log was
Abraham Lincoln, who afterwards served in the Legisla-
ture, in Congress, and as President of the United States,
and who did more to banish slavery from the United States
than any other man.

CHAPTER VII.

HOW LINCOLN FIRST EARNED THE SOBRIQUET OF " HON-
EST ABE." HIS SPEECH WINS THE DEBATE. CIRCUM-
STANCES OF HIS -SPEECH IN 1858 WHEN RUNNING FOR
SENATOR.

When Mr. Lincoln first commenced the practice of law
there was nothing that brought him so prominently before
the people as a lawyer as his punctuality in collecting debts
for his clients and paying over the money.

At that time about two-thirds of all the business was done
on credit. The Illinois merchants would buy their goods
from the Eastern and St. Louis wholesale merchants on
twelve months' credit and sell them to the farmers and me-
chanics on the same time. The consequence was that the

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 117

merchant's note would not be paid and it would be sent to
some lawyer for collection, and then there would be as
much trouble to get the money from the lawyers as it was
from the customer. But Mr. Lincoln, whenever he col-
lected any money, immediately forwarded it to the credi-
tor, and in that way built up a practice that extended over
several counties and earned for him the name of " Honest
Abe " Lincoln,

I remember meeting Mr. Lincoln, in the spring of 1839,
between Canton and Lewistown. I overtook him about
two miles north of Lewistown, and as we rode along he told
me he had been attending court in Knox and Warren coun-
ties and was on his way back to Springfield. As it was
late in the afternoon and the roads were muddy, Mr. Lin-
coln said he would stay in Lewistown over night, and in-
quired about the taverns. I directed him to Truman
Phelps' tavern, as it was the best place, and he stayed there
over night. 1 remember he had a large pair of port-
manteaus on his saddle which appeared to be pretty well
filled. I suppose he had his law books and some clothing
in them, for at that time lawyers who traveled around the
circuit carried their law books with them. He was dressed
in a suit of Kentucky jeans, over which was a heavy over-
coat having four capes and a standing collar and fastening
with a hook and clasp. He also wore a pair of green baize
leggings, wrapped two or three times around the leg and
tied just below the knee and pinned at the top and bottom.

The night Mr. Lincoln stayed in Lewistown happened
to be the evening for the regular meeting of the Lewistown
lyceum, and he attended. The meetings of the lyceum were
largely attended by both the ladies and gentlemen of the
town and were held in the old Methodist church, two blocks
west of the court house. The subject for discussion that
evening was " Which has done the most for the establish-
ment and maintenance of our republican form of govern-
ment and free institutions, the sword or pen?" and Mr.
Lincoln was invited to take part in the debate, which he did.
The men speaking on the side of the sword were Lewis W.
Ross, Richard Johnson and Joseph Sharp, all lawyers, and

118 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

those speaking for the pen were J. P. Boice and Abraham
Lincoln, both lawyers, and William Kelly, a merchant of
Lewistown. The speakers for the sword commenced with
George Washington and ran down to General Jackson and
General Cass and other officers who had gained great vic-
tories by the sword. When Lincoln commenced his speach
he eulogized the other side for the effort they had made but
said they had omitted the name of one of the valiant gener-
als who lived in their own country. " For instance," said
he, u there is General Stillman, who led the volunteers in
the Black Hawk war." When he mentioned the name of
General Stillman a smile came over the face of every one
present, for we all remembered the general's defeat, and
how Black Hawk, with his little band of Indians, chased
him, with his larger force, fifteen miles and drove them
into Fort Dixon. After Mr. Lincoln had joked them a
little about their generals he entered into the subject in
earnest and quoted from the writings of Patrick Henry,
Benjamin Franklin and many other great men, which
showed that he was well posted in the writings and history
of our country. He made a royal good speech and the
judges awarded to his side the victory, much to the gratifi-
cation of Messrs. Boice and Kelly.

Mr. Lincoln was dressed in a suit of jeans with heavy
boots and looked like a farmer, and the people were very
much surprised when they heard his speech. A number of
ladies attended that evening and I had walked over to the
meeting with Miss Isabella Johnson, who remarked that
she thought the rough, farming looking man had made the
best speech. Attorney Johnson, who was one of Lincoln's
opponents in that debate, and who was familiarly known as
" Dick " Johnson, came to California in 1850 and was
elected attorney general of the state and held several other
important offices. He came to see me after I came to
California and in talking over old times asked me if 1 re-
membered the time he and Lincoln measured the aword
against the pen in the old Methodist church in Lewistown.
He said he little thought that the man who defeated him in
that debate would some day become President of the United
States.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 119

Mr. Lincoln was well posted in all that took place in the
Black Hawk war, for he enlisted three times. The first
time the volunteers were called out by Governor Reynolds
it was for three months and Mr. Lincoln was elected Cap-
tain of his company. After the company was discharged
it re-enlisted and served its time out and was again dis-
charged, when Mr. Lincoln again re-enlisted and served un-
til the close of the war.

I remember the circumstances connected with Mr. Lin-
coln's speech in Lewistown in August 1858, when he was
running for United States Senator against Stephen A.
Douglas. I was then living at Vermont, twenty miles from
Lewistown, and drove to the latter town with my wife. She
had often heard me speak of Mr. Lincoln and of his kind-
ness to me when I was a lad carrying the mail, and she
wanted to see him and hear him speak. I might say right
here that we have been married for almost fifty-seven years,
and that is the only political meeting she has ever had a
disposition to attend. We stopped at my brother Lewis'
house and found Mr. Lincoln sitting on the west porch.
He and my brother Lewis had served together in the legis-
lature and he had called at my brother's home to see him.
I shook hands with him and told him that my wife and I
had driven twenty miles that morning to hear him speak.

Mr. Lincoln delivered his address in front of the old
court house on a platform erected between two pillars.
There were seats erected for 400 or 500 people, which were
mostly occupied by ladies. I should think there were from
2,000 to 3,000 people present. He spoke on the repeal of
the Missouri compromise and of the steady and sure en-
croachment of slavery on the free territory, and it was con-
sidered as one of his ablest speeches. I got a front seat, for
I was anxious to hear all he said, and as I sat there my
mind w r ent back twenty-five years, during the same month,
when I met him in Springfield on the day of the big show,
how he was dressed on that day and how he catechised me
about coming through New Salem without having the mail
opened which I mentioned in a former article. In place
of the short pants and brown linen coat and low shoes tied

120 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

across the instep and buckeye hat, he wore a fine light linen
suit, fine boots and a silk hat. Major Newton Walker
and John Proctor accompanied him- to the court house in a
fine carriage, and I think Major Walker took him in his
carriage the next day to Canton, where he was to speak
again.

CHAPTER VIII.

SOME FACTS IN RELATION TO LINCOLN'S STOREKEEPING.

ERROR IN HERNDON'S BIOGRAPHY. MR. LINCOLN A
JUDGE IN HORSE-RACES.

When Mr. Lincoln ran for the legislature in 1832 and
was defeated by Mr. Cartwright it was no disparagement
to him, for Mr. Cartwright was one of the strongest and
most popular men in the country, but it was a stimulus to
greater activity by him, and it is probable that it was a
providential thing that he was not elected, for he was only
twenty-three years old and had never applied himself to
that diligent study which prepared him for the great duties
that he was afterwards called upon to perform. After his
defeat he applied himself industriously to his books, so that
in 1334. when he was two years older and considerable
wiser, his friends brought him out again for representa-
tive. He was elected by a handsome majority and was
re-elected in '3G, '"38 and '40, serving four terms, in all
eight years, and in 1846 was elected to Congress.

I will now go back a little and state a few facts in regard
to Mr. Lincoln's stora-keeping, and how he became involved
in a debt that hung over him for many years, for there
have been many misstatements regarding it. When Mr.
Lincoln kept the postofiice, the profits of the office did not
afford him a fair living, and it confined him indoors so
that he could not pursue any other occupation. There was
a young man by the name of William Berry, who lived
four miles from town with his father, Rev. John Berry,

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 121

who was a Cumberland Presbyterian minister and a man
of considerable property. William had attended the Jack-
sonville college and was a smart, intelligent young man,
but inclined to be a little bit wild. His father, knowing
the good habits of Mr. Lincoln, induced him to take Wil-
liam into partnership, and they purchased a store, paying
a small part down and giving their notes for the balance.
They kept the store in the same building with the postoffice
and had as fair a trade, I think, as any of the other mer-
chants in the town. The story told in W. H. Herndon's
life of Lincoln, that after they had bought the first store
they bought a second and then a third store on credit, and
that Mr. Lincoln tried to get Berry to borrow money from
his father to buy a fourth store, is all a fabrication. Mr.
Lincoln was careful in all his dealings and was disposed
to have too much confidence in men ; being honest him-
self, he wanted to believe that other men were the same.
He finally sold out his interest to his partner, who was to
pay the debts. But young Berry soon after took to drink-
ing, made some bad debts and took sick and died before
the debt on the store was paid. It was the opinion of
many persons at New Salem that the father of William
Berry should have paid off the indebtedness and relin-
quished Mr. Lincoln, for it was through his influence that
the boy had been taken as a partner. Mr. Lincoln was too
honest to let the debt go, and, keeping the interest up, the
first money he could save from his salary, when he was
elected to Congress in 1846, he sent to his law partner, W.
H. Herndon, to pay off the old debt.

Mr. Lincoln was very popular in and around New
Salem, for in all his .dealings he had been both honest and
truthful, and had the respect of all who knew him, which
was shown in his race for the legislature in 1832, when he
received all but seven or eight of the 300 votes in his pre-
cinct.

New Salem, at the time Mr. Lincoln lived there, was a
great place of resort for the young men to gather on Sat-
urdays. The Clary Grove boys, the Island Grove boys,
the Sangamon River boys and the Sand Ridge boys,

122 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

each designated by the part of the country from which they
came, would gather there to indulge in horse racing, foot
racing, wrestling, jumping, ball playing and shooting at a
mark. Mr. Lincoln would generally take a lay-off for part
of the day and join in the sport. He was very stout and
active and was a match for any of them. I do not think
he bet on any of the games or races, but they had so much
confidence in his honesty, and that he would see fair play,
that he was often 'chosen as a judge to determine the win-
ner, and his decisions were always regarded as just. He
would generally speak on the subject of internal improve-
ment and of the great resources of the State of Illinois,
of its advantages over other states, and of the wonderful
opportunities that lay in store for the young men of Illi-
nois if they would only improve them. In those speeches
he very seldom touched on politics, so everyone was pleased
and none offended, the meeting generally closing with three
cheers for Lincoln and a general handshaking. The peo-
ple would go home happy, and few of them would come
in town again until the next Saturday.

Mr. Lincoln was not only chosen as a judge in horse
races, but was often the arbiter in disputes between his
neighbors, and saved them many expensive law suits. A
justice of the peace came into his office one day and com-
plained that he had been cruelly wronged by him ; that he
had deprived him of many fine fees by interfering with his
business. Mr. Lincoln replied that he could not bear to
see his neighbors spend their money in litigation and be-
come enemies for life when he could prevent it. When
these cases were brought before him he would generally
give satisfaction to both parties, and when one was in the
wrong he would point out to him his error and convince
him of it before he left.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 123

CHAPTER IX.

SOME INCIDENTS OF W. H. HERNDON ? S EARLY LIFE. HIS

FURTHER MISSTATEMENTS IN REGARD TO LINCOLN.

In writing of the early life of Abraham Lincoln, I think
I had better give a sketch of the early life of William H.
Herndon, who was for twenty years a law partner of Mr.
Lincoln, and who wrote " Herndon' s Life of Lincoln,"
contained in two volumes. There are but few persons
now living who knew Mr. Herndon as well as I did in the
days of his youth. He was a son of Archer G. Herndon,
one of the early settlers of Springfield, who built and kept
one of the first hotels ever erected in that city the Hern-
don House. He was a prominent politician and had been
elected State Senator, besides holding several other offices
at different times. He was a Whig and a warm personal
friend of Mr. Lincoln.

While I was carrying the mail I stopped two nights each
week at the Hern cl on House, and there is where I became
acquainted with William Herndon. We were about the
same age, he being fourteen years old, while I was
fifteen, and as we were both of a lively disposition and fond
of sport, we spent a great deal of time together, commenc-
ing in the year 1832. He possessed one trait of character
that many people objected to, and that was the delight he
took in playing practical jokes. He did not seem to care
how much misery and suffering he caused, so long as he
had a little notoriety or fun out of it. In the fall of 1836
my father sent me to the Jacksonville college. A young
man named Porter from Chicago was my room mate, but
after I had been there about a week Bill Herndon came
up to our room and told me that he had come to attend
college and wanted to know if I would take him as a room-
mate, remarking that I was the only student with whom he
was acquainted. I told him I was willing if Porter would
consent, and Porter said he had no objections if I could
furnish him bedding.

124: EAKLY PIONEEKS AND EVENTS.

As I had a room to myself and a large bed, I took Hern-
don in and we bunked together. I noticed he had not
brought a trunk with him, and I asked him where his trunk
was. He said he had come away from home in a hurry and
did not bring it, but that his folks would send it by the next
stage. Then he commenced laughing, and I suspected
he had been up to some of his old tricks, so I said : "Now,
Bill, you have been in some devilment and you had to get
away and you must tell us what it is." He said there had
been an election for county officers up in Sangamon county
and that one of the political parties had paid him $1.50
to take some tickets out to a precinct a few miles from
Springfield and heel them among the voters. After he had
gone a mile he was overtaken by a young man who had a
package of tickets for the opposing party. The young
man offered Herndon $1.50 to take his tickets and distrib-
ute them among the voters Herndon accepted the offer and
the first creek he came to he soused the tickets in, leaving
the men who would have voted that ticket the alternative
of writing their tickets or not voting. This act incited
the wrath of the parties who had employed him first, so he
had come away until the storm blew over. He told the
story with such glee and merriment that it was evident he
thought he had done something .remarkably cute.

Herndon had not been at the college long until it was
evident that he was brim full of devilment, and there was
scarcely a week during the time he stayed there that he
was not cited to appear before the faculty for some mis-
demeanor. It was not because there was anything bad
about him that made him do as he did, but he wanted to
gain notoriety and astonish somebody. After he left col-
lege he clerked in a store in Springfield for a long time,
and then commenced the study of law. He applied him-
self to his studies, and was about twenty-five years old
when he went in with Mr. Lincoln, who was nine years his
senior. It was thought a little strange at that time that
Mr. Lincoln would take into partnership so young and inex-
perienced a lawyer as Bill Herndon. But he had his rea-
sons and I think I can come very near guessing some of

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 125

them. Bill's father had been a friend to Lincoln for a
great many years and was a very influential man in San-
gamon county. He had always helped Lincoln in every
way, and it was in payment for this kindness that Lincoln
took his son in his office. It was a parallel case with that
of Bill Berry, who Lincoln took in as a partner in his New
Salem store. Boih fathers wanted their sons in partner-
ship with an honest man.

Then there was another reason. Both of Lincoln's part-
ners, John T. Stuart and Stephen T. Logan, were, like him-
self, aspirants for political honors, and he had learned
that a law office; could not prosper when all the members
of the firm wanted to be Congressmen. As Bill was young
and showed no disposition to run into politics, he thought
it was safe to take him into partnership. And Bill did
apply himself to business, and, so far as I can learn, gave
perfect satisfaction to the firm and to the people for whom
he transacted business, up to the time of Lincoln's death.
But for some unaccountable reason, after Mr. Lincoln died
he commenced drinking. He had never drank before in his
life, and moved out to his farm, seven miles east of Spring-
field, to get away from the saloons and his drinking com-
panions.

I cannot but think that perhaps it was his ruling passion
to do something surprising coupled with the habits of
his later years, that induced him to make so many extrav-
agant and untruthful statements in his "Life of Lincoln."
I will mention a few of them. For instance, his state-
ment that on his trip to New Orleans Lincoln bored a
hole in the bottom of the flat boat to let the water out of
course is untrue. He says Lincoln tried to drive some
hogs onto the flatboat and when they would not go he sewed
up their eyes so that they couldn't see where they were
going, when the fact is there were no hogs taken on the
boat, it being loaded with produce. He also says that
Lincoln weighed 240 pounds when he lived in New Salem
and could lift 1,000 pounds, and had been known to lift
a barrel of whiskey by the chimes and drink out of the
bung-hole ; that after he bought the store in New Salem

126 EAKLY PIONEEBS AND EVENTS.

he bought a second, then a third, and tried to borrow money
to buy the fourth, when not a dollar had been paid on any
of them. The facts are Lincoln never weighed over
175 pounds in his life ; was never known to take a drink of
liquor out of anything, and never purchased but one store,
and paid for that. Herndon also said that the mail was
caried through New Salem in a four-horse coach, and that
the postage on letters was five, ten, fifteen, twenty and
twenty-five cents. The mail was carried on horseback and I
rode the horse, and the postage on letters was 6-]-, 12^, 18f
and 25 cents, according to the distance they were carried.
He says the Rutledge tavern, where Lincoln boarded, was
a one-story house with four rooms, when in fact it was a
two-story eight-room house. I only make these statements
to show that he knew nothing of what he was writing ; that
it was all guess work, and very poor guess work at that.

The cruelest and most outrageous statement, however, in
Herndon's book is the story of Lincoln breaking his en-
gagement to Miss Mary Todd. He say that on the 1st
day of January, 1841, careful preparations had been made
at the Edwards mansion for the wedding. The house un-
derwent the customary renovation, the furniture was prop-
erly arranged, the rooms neatly decorated, the supper pre-
pared and the guests invited. The latter assembled on
the evening in question and waited in expectant pleasure
the interesting ceremony of the marriage. The bride,
bedecked in veil and silk gown, and nervously toying with
the flowers in her hair, sat in the adjoining room. Noth-
ing was lacking but the groom. For some strange reason
he had been delayed. An hour passed and the guests, as
well as the bride, were becoming restless. But they were
all doomed to disappointment. Another hour passed and
messengers were sent out over town, each returning with
the same report. It became apparent that Lincoln, one
of the principals in the little drama, had purposely failed
to appear. The bride in grief dispersed the guests, who
quietly and wonderingly withdrew'; the lights in the Ed-
wards mansion were blown out and darkness settled over
all for the night. After daylight and after a persistent

ABKAHAM LINCOLN. 127

search Lincoln's friends found him. Restless, gloomy,
miserable, desperate, he seemed an object of pity. His
friends, fearing a tragic termination, watched him closely
in their rooms day and night. Knives, razors and every
instrument that could be used for self destruction were re-
moved from his reach.

Now how any man can have the audacity to fabricate
such a mass of falsehoods as the above story and put them
in a book is beyond my comprehension. There is not a
word of truth in it. Mr. Lincoln and Miss Todd were
engaged at one time, but the wedding was put off one year
by mutual consent, as Mr. Lincoln wanted to get his finan-
cial affairs in a little better condition before he took a wife.

CHAPTER X.

TRUE STORY OF THE LINCOLN-SHIELDS DUEL.

In giving a short historical sketch of the Lincoln-Shields
duel, as some of the historians saw proper to call it, I will
state a few facts and circumstances, as I understood them
at the time, that induced Mr. Shields to challenge Mr. Lin-
coln to fight a duel.

William H. Herndon, in his history of the life of Lin-
coln, has appropriated some dozen pages in telling the story
of that duel and has not told one-half of the difficulty that
existed between Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Shields. He says
the trouble grew out of an article that appeared in the San-
gamon Journal, supposed to have beeiJrritten by Mr. Lin-
coln, and which Mr. Shields consumed derogatory to his
character and standing as a stato^omcer. But from all I
could learn the green-eyed rm^rater jealousy had more to
do with Mr. Shields wantinj^o fight Mr. Lincoln than any
thing else. Shields, Lincoln, Stephen A. Douglas and
some other young lawyers about Springfield had been pay-
ing considerable attention to Miss Mary Todd, and Shields
became deeply enamored with her. He had served a term

128 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

in the legislature with a great deal of credit and was then
holding the office of state auditor, and besides being an able
lawyer he was quite popular in the democratic party. Miss
Mary was a handsome, brilliant and highly-educated
young lady, and there is no doubt that Shields wanted her
to become his wife, but Mr. Lincoln was his rival, so when
that article appeared in the Journal it gave him an excuse
to challenge Lincoln to mortal combat.

According to the rules of dueling the person challenged
chooses the weapons and fixes the distance the combatants
are to stand apart. Mr. Lincoln took advantage of his
rights as the challenged party and chose as the weapons
broad swords of the largest size, precisely equal in every
way, and such as were used by the cavalry at Jacksonville.
A plank, ten feet long and from nine to twelve inches wide,
was to be firmly fixed in the ground as the dividing line,
over which neither was to pass his foot on forfeit of his life.
Next two lines were to be drawn on the grounbl parallel
with the board and the full length of the sword from the
board, and if either party stepped over this line during the
contest he would be counted as having been defeated. This
scheme placed the parties about six feet apart, and gave Mr.
'Lincoln a tremendous advantage with his long legs and
arms, while Shields was a short man with short arms and
legs. The result would be that Lincoln by stooping over
with his long arms could tickle Shields very uncomfortably
about his ribs with the point of his sword, while Shields
could not reach Lincoln by twelve or fifteen inches. It
would have placed Shields completely at the mercy of Lin-
coln ; but in all the world he could not have been in kinder
hands, for it was never in Lincoln's big and tender heart
to hurt a human being, except in self-defense.

But while the seconds and friends of the two parties were
making preparations for the duel, John J. Hardin (one of
the most influential men of the state, and a friend of both
parties), having heard that they were going to fight a duel,
hastened to the scene of action and declared that the thing
had to stop, that there was nothing to fight about except a
miserable little misunderstanding between them. Mr.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 129

Hardin told the seconds to go to Shields and have him with-
draw the offensive and threatening letter he had written to
Lincoln, and then he believed Lincoln would give him a
satisfactory explanation of the whole matter. Mr.
ITardin's advice was taken, and then Mr. Lincoln explained
that he had only written a short paragraph in The Journal
which was not intended to reflect on Mr. Shields' character,
but was merely an unmalicious electioneering document.
Mr. Shields was satisfied with the explanation Mr. Lincoln
gave, and the fight was declared off.

Now it is probable that there was not another man in
Sangamon county at that time who, if he had received such a
challenge, w r ould not at once have made up his mind that he
had to back dow T n and confess that he was afraid to fight,
or stand up and be shot at. But not so with Lincoln. With
his great mind and head full of hard common sense he was
able to solve all such questions and come out victorious with
nobody hurt. Mr. Lincoln afterwards told his friends
that he did not want to hurt Shields that he had nothing
against him ; but if he had paid no attention to the chal-
lenge that Shields would have said he was a coward and had
shown the white feather, and would have crowed over it
like a bantam rooster, and he wanted to teach him to behave
himself.

Herndon's Life of Lincoln says that Lincoln and Shields
were to stand twelve feet apart in their duel ; it is certainly
an absurd mistake. At least I always understood that the
distance w y as twice the length of one of the swords that were
to be used. So I have no doubt that Mr. Herndon missed
the mark six feet ; but it was no uncommon thing for him
to do. I find in his Life of Lincoln a great many instances
in which he missed the mark more than six feet. For in-
stance, he describes Mr. Shields at a hot-headed, blustering
Irishman of but little prominence, when he was really a
man of very great ability. He served as associate justice
of the supreme court, was commissioner of the general land
office, had the rare distinction of being at different times
United States senator for three different states, and as a
gallant officer of the Mexican War was advanced on his
merits to the high place of major general.

130 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

After Mr. Lincoln was elected president he remembered
his old friend that was a rival for his sweetheart and would
have fought a duel for her hand, and showed his kind arid
forgiving spirit by presenting Shields with a brigadier
general's commission. So Gen. James Shields must have
been a man of considerable ability to have held these po-
sitions, lie was a grand and patriotic man.

How wonderful was the wisdom and tact and sweetness
of Lincoln in averting with honor to himself the duel that
might have robbed our country of two such men !

CHAPTER XI.

MR. LINCOLN'S RELIGIOUS BELIEF.

Since I commenced writing these sketches of the earlier
life of Mr. Lincoln I have sometimes been asked if I knew
anything about his religious belief and how he stood with
the orthodox world on that subject. I have never heard
him express himself on that question, and I do not believe
that he ever made a public profession of religion or con-
nected himself with any church. But I know that he was
looked upon as a moral and exemplary young man. I have
understood that a minister remarked to him one day that
he believed that he was a Chri stain man, and asked why it
was that he did not join some church ; and Mr. Lincoln is
said to have replied that if he could find a church whose
creed and requirements could be simmered down to the
Savior's condensed statement. " Thou shalt love the Lord
thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with
all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself," that he would
join that church with all his heart and soul.

William II. Herndon in his Life of Lincoln has this to
sa of him :

" In 1834, while he lived in ^ew Salem, and before he
became a lawyer, he was surrounded by a class of people
exceedingly liberal in matters of religion. Volney's Ruins

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 131

and Paine's Age of Reason, and other infidel literature
passed from hand to hand and furnished food for the even-
ing in the tavern and village stores, and Lincoln read those
books and thus assimilated them into his own being. He
prepared an extensive essay, called by many a book, in
which he made an argument against Christianity, striving
to prove that the Bible was not inspired, and therefore not
God's revelation, and that Jesus Christ was not the Son of
God. The manuscript containing these audacious and
comprehensive propositions he intended to have published
or given a wide circulation in some other way. He carried
it to the store where it was read and freely discussed. His
friend and employer, Samuel Hill, was among the listeners,
and seriously questioning the propriety of a promising
young man like Lincoln fathering such unpopular notions,
he snatched the manuscript from his hands and thrust it
into the stove. The book went up in the flames, and Lin-
coln's political future was secured."

Now I have good reason to believe that Mr. Herndon
drew largely on his imagination for this story. I believe
it to be without foundation. As I have before stated, my
business as mail carrier required me to be in Lincoln's store
and postoffice a part of four days in each week to have the
mail changed, and at the same time stopped at the same
tavern with Mr. Lincoln. I generally kept my eyes and
ears open and knew pretty well what was going on. If
there had been any discussion or writing of the sort alluded
to by Mr. Herndon I certainly would have known it. Mr.
Herndon was then sixteen year sold and lived at Springfield,
twenty miles away. His father kept the hotel where I
put up two nights out of each week, and I generally found
Bill on hand either at the hotel or the stable. If he had
been away from his business to visit New Salem to look up
Mr. Lincoln's religious record, I think that I would have
known something about it. It will be noticed that Mr.
Herndon says that Mr. Hill threw the infidel document
into the stove. Now I know very well that in 1834 Mr.
Hill never had a stove in his store. I remember that in
the Rutledge tavern, where Mr. Lincoln boarded, they had

132 EARLY PIONEEBS AND EVENTS.

a shelf put up in the sitting room, and on this shelf the
library was kept. There were some twenty five or thirty
books law books, histories and miscellaneous works but
none of those books referred to by Mr. Herndon.

I have always believed that from the first that I knew of
Mr. Lincoln that he was a Christian and one of the best men
that I ever knew. I think that all his acts, letters and pub-
lic documents will show that Mr. Herndon was mistaken in
regard to his infidelity.

In 1851 Mr. Lincoln learned that his father was not ex-
pected to live, and as he had sickness in his own family and
could not go to see him, he wrote the following letter to his
half-brother :

" I sincerely hope that father may yet recover his health ;
but at all events tell him to remember and call upon and
confide in our great and good and merciful Maker who will
not turn away from him in any extremity. He notices the
fall of a sparrow, and numbers the hairs of our head, and
he will not forget the dying man who puts his trust in him.
Say to him that if we could meet now it is doubtful whether
it would be more painful than pleasant ; but if it be his lot
to go now he will soon have a joyful meeting with the many
loved ones gone before, and where the rest of us, through
the help of God, hope ere long to join them."

It will be remembered that on his trip from Springfield
to Washington to be inaugurated he addressed a multitude
from the cars as he was leaving his old home and that
among other things he spoke as follows :

" A duty devolves upon me which perhaps is greater than
has devolved upon any other man since the days of Wash-
ington. He would have never succeeded except for the aid
of Divine Providence upon which he had at all times relied.
I feel that I cannot succeed without the same divine aid
which sustained him, and in the same Almighty be-
ing I place my reliance for support, and I hope
you, my friends, will all pray that I may receive that divine
assistance without which I cannot succeed, but with which
success is certain."

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 133

At another time when our armies were meeting reverses
and the destiny of the nation seemed to be hanging in the
balance, President Lincoln appointed a day for prayer for
the success of the army in the following words :

" And, whereas, when our beloved country, once by the
blessing of God united, prosperous and happy, is now
afflicted with factions and civil wars, it is peculiarly fit for
us to recognize the hand of God in this terrible visitation,
and in sorrowful remembrance of our own faults and
crimes as a nation and as individuals, to humble ourselves
before Him and to pray for His mercy to pray that we
may be spared further punishment, though most justly de-
served ; that our armies may be blessed and made effectual
for the re-establishment of law and order and peace
throughout the wide extent of our country, and that the in-
estimable boon of civil and religious liberty, earned under
His guidance and blessing by the labors and sufferings of
our fathers, may be restored in all its original excellence.
Therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United
States, do appoint the last Thursday in September next as
a day of humiliation, prayer and fasting for all the people
of the nation. And I do earnestly recommend to all the
people, and especially to all ministers and teachers of re-
ligion of all denominations, and to all heads of families, to
observe and keep that day according to their several creeds
and modes of worship, in all humility, and with all re-
ligious solemnity, to the end that united prayers of the
nation may ascend to the throne of grace and bring down
plentiful blessing upon our country."

Now there is not much skeptical doctrines in these letters
and utterances. So I think that we can claim that Mr.
Lincoln was a pretty good orthodox Christian.

134 EAELY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

CHAPTER XII.

MY VISIT TO THE GRAVE OF THE MARTYRED PRESIDENT.

About three years after Mr. Lincoln had been buried at
Springfield I Avent to that city to visit his resting place
and to see my old college chum, William II. Herndon. I
hoped we could go together to visit Lincoln's grave. But
I found that Mr. Herndon had moved seven miles into the
country, and that he had recently had a long and serious
illness, so that he would probably not be able to come to
the city at that time. I then learned for the first time of
my old friend's dissipation, following Lincoln's death.
At last his friends had to send him into the country to get
him away from the saloons and his boon companions. No
doubt, in his dissipated and mentally-wrecked condition,
he had Avritten the false and absurd things of Lincoln that
marred his history of that great man a history that con-
tains much valuable truth and information. But his in-
temperate habits and abnormal mental condition are doubt-
less to blame for the absurd and silly stories that mar the
history and wrong the memory of the good Lincoln. It
is strange that men of good sense will reproduce these out-
rageous falsehoods in their papers and magazines as his-
tory, when there is neither truth nor history in them.

When I found that my unfortunate old school mate could
not go with me, I went alone to Lincoln's grave. I was
surprised to find that he was not buried in the old cemetery
that I had often seen, but that his burial place was a long
way north of town, and reached by street cars. When I
got there I was again surprised to find his grave near the
old stage road that ran in early times from Springfield
to Peoria, and but a short distance from the old ferry
where the road crossed the Sangamon river. All this
ground was familiar to me. It brought to my mind many
incidents of an historical nature. The ferry was of great
importance in the olden times. The high land on either

ABEAHAM LINCOLN. 135

side came to the river, and it could therefore be crossed in
any stage of water; but below this ferry for forty miles
the river was difficult to cross, because of the low bottom
lands that would overflow. Mr. Lincoln informed me of
this fact, which he had discovered while navigating the
river with flatboats and his steamboat. So it was that
while I was carrying the mail in times of high water, in-
stead of going from Athens to Sangamontown, and thus
crossing deep sloughs and creeks, I kept up the river and
crossed this ferry, two miles from Springfield, and so trav-
eled up this old and familiar road that ran by Lincoln's
grave.

Tradition tells us that it was at this ferry where Mr.
Lincoln landed his canoe when he first came down the
Sangamon river to make that locality his home, he then
being a mere lad, and that he walked up the same old road
to the hamlet of Springfield. It was at this ferry landing,
also, that he landed and tied up for a week the steamboat
Talisman, and stood upon her upper deck, and from day to
day addressed the great crowds of people who flocked to the
river to see the wonderful steamboat. These were the
speeches in which he told the people of the wonderful pos-
sibilities of the great state, and of its opulent future, if
these possibilities were improved. What a prophet he
was ! And yet he was in full view of the knoll on which
was to stand his imperial monument of to-day, and never
dreamed of the reverence and honor that would come to
him. And I had often carried the mail over this ferry
and highway close by this to be forever sacred spot, little
thinking of the wonderful things to come in the following
thirty-three years.

Mr. Lincoln's remains were then enclosed in a brick
vault, the walls two feet thick and twelve feet high. Since
then the great monument has been erected above his ashes.

I sat down by my old friend's grave while the old memo-
ries crowded thick and fast about me. I recalled my first
acquaintance with him in 1832 ; the many times I sat at
the same table with him at the Hutledge tavern in New
Salem ; of the many times we had joined in changing the

136 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

mail ; I remember the last time I traveled the road, carry-
ing the pouch of letters his hands had touched ; of the time
he took the long walk in the hot sun to get Judge Thomas to
fix the title papers to my land, refusing to accept a fee,
because, he said, I had done favors for him. All of these
incidents and numberless acts of kindness on his part
crowded my memory. And then came before me his splen-
did future life with its mighty honors and mightier bur-
dens; his election to the presidency; the long and terrible
war in which he was the great commander of army and
navy; that noble victory that under heaven he achieved,
and his cruel death amidst the shouts for the union re-
stored and peace assured forever. And sitting by his
grave I paid the homage of tears to my boyhood friend,
the best, and truest, and sweetest man I ever knew.

I believe that Lincoln might have said, the day before
his assassination, as truly as did the Apostle Paul before
his martyrdom :

" I have fought a good fight ; I have finished my course ;
I have kept the faith ; henceforth there is laid up for me
a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the Righteous
Judge, shall give me at that day."

Hnbrew Jackson*

PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF THE OLD HERO
AND STATESMAN.

CHAPTER I.

THE CHURCHWELL AND KIRKPATRICK FAMILIES' PERSONAL
ACQUAINTANCESHIP WITH THE OLD HERO AND STATES-
MAN. HISTORY OF THE TRAGEDY IN WHICH ANDREW

JACKSON PARTICIPATED. OUR VISIT TO HIM AT THE

HERMITAGE. STORY OF MRS. JACKSON'S DEATH. A LIT-
TLE ANECDOTE ABOUT ALEXANDER KIRKPATRICK.

Since I closed the several sketches that I have been
writing for The Fulton Democrat containing reminiscences
of the lives of Abraham Lincoln and Peter Cartwright, I
have received letters from Boston, Springfield and many
other places requesting me to furnish them with copies of
those letters. Some of the writers said they wished to
write a history of the Life of Lincoln and wished to copy
those letters into it. There have also been many requests
that I should continue those sketches. But some of my
children and grandchildren wish me to compile those let-
ters in book form, and if I should do soi I would like to
write also a few sketches of what I knew and have been
able to reliably learn of the life and character of Andrew
Jackson, and add these to those already written of Lincoln
and Cartwright.

I hope the readers will not think that I want to make
myself conspicuous in writing up the history of great men,
for I do not. But if 1 can tell some facts and give some
new information that will be interesting and useful to my
children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, of

137

138 EAKLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

which I have a pretty fair stock, and at the same time
might interest other people, it would be all that I could de-
sire.

Peculiar circumstances have given me the privilege of
knowing a good many incidents relating to that grand hero
and statesman, Gen. Jackson, that are not generally known.
1 remember very well the time that, he ran for president
in 1828, and many of the events connected with that very
exciting campaign ; and I visited him at the Hermitage
and witnessed and enjoyed his kind and generous hospi-
tality. I have also visited the memorable battle ground at
New Orleans where the great battle was fought and won
by Jackson and his men on the 8th of January, 1815, and
procured some of the relics and trophies of that wonderful
battle.

And now perhaps some of the readers may want to know
how it happened that I, a resident of Illinois, ever came to
know and learn very much about Andrew Jackson, who
lived in Tennessee, and what led me to make him a visit
at the Hermitage. So I will have to go into some family
affairs to show how it happened. So I would say in the
first place that all of my wife's relations back of the pres-
ent generation were Tennesseeans and w r ere raised but a
short distance from where Gen. Jackson lived, and they
all knew him. My wife's father, Charles Kirkpatrick,
who lived near Canton, 111., and was an elder in the Pres-
byterian church of that place for many years, was a captain
under Gen. Jackson in the war of 1812, and was with him
in many expeditions against the Creek and Chickasaw
Indians, and knew the old hero from his youth up. My
wife's uncle (a brother to her mother), Col. George W.
Churchwell, a prominent lawyer in that part of the country
where General Jackson lived, had held the appointment of
Indian agent under Jackson during a part of his presi-
dential administration, and had practiced law at the bar
with him, and had practiced law before the general when he
was judge. Col. Churchwell's wife was also well ac-
quainted with Jackson, and knew him at the time when he
was converted and united with the Presbvterian church,

ANDREW JACJvSON. 139

and had sat at the communion table with him, herself be-
ing a Presbyterian. Now it was from these persons I got
a good deal of my information about Gen. Jackson. Gen.
Churchwell was widely known throughout that part of the
country. In addition to his large law practice he was a
farmer and breeder of fine stock. He had a farm of 500
acres two miles north of Knoxville, Tenn. At the time I
visited him in 1843 he was the owner of some forty slaves of
both sexes and all ages. Col. C. and wife came to Fulton
county about every two years to visit his sister and family
and to look after some lands he had there. It was on the
occasion of one of those visits that I met with him and bar-
gained for some of his fine stock. So in the fall of 1843
I started from Havana, 111., with two horses and a carriage,
in company with my wife's brother, Alexander Kirkpat-
rick, and my brother, Pike C. Ross, to go to Knoxville to
bring home the stock. But before we started Captain
Kirkpatrick charged us very particularly if we traveled
near to the Hermitage to be sure to stop and see Gen. Jack-
son and to give to the old general his kind regards, and to
tell him the number of his regiment and company, and
what battles and expeditions they were in together.

I stated in my last communication that with my brother
Pike C. Ross and my wife's brother, A. C. Kirkpatrick, I
had made arrangements to go to Knoxville, Tennessee, to
bring home some fine stock that I had purchased of my
wife's uncle, Col. George W. Churchwell, who lived on a
farm near that place. My brother Pike at that time was
about eighteen years, and my wife's brother was two years
older. Both were full of life and were desirous of getting
as much pleasure out of the trip as possible.

We started from Havana, Mason county, about the first
of October, 1843, with a span of fine traveling horses and a
light carriage. Our route ran through a section of coun-
try where I had traveled as early as in 1829 and 30, and I
could point out to the boys some of the old landmarks of
that early day and tell them of the wonderful changes that

140 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

had taken place in the country since I first traveled through
it.

In 1828 when my father settled at Havana there was not
a house on the Springfield road between Havana and
Miller's Ferry on the Sangamon river, a distance of fifteen
miles. And in all that section of country lying between
the Sangamon river and the Mackinaw river and running
east from the Illinois river for a distance of fifteen
miles, containing at least 400 square miles, there was
not a white inhabitant except three or four families
at Havana. Great numbers of Indians lived along the
water courses, and their Indian ponies by the thousands
ranged over all that vast country.

As we traveled on we stopped at the old town of New
Salem, Mr. Lincoln's old home and stamping ground,
where he kept store and the post office. I had not been
there since I carried the mail some ten years before, and I
wanted to see how the old town looked. I found some of
the old buildings still standing, but most of them had been
taken to Petersburg. Mr. Lincoln's house, where he kept
store and the post office, and Samuel Hill's store, where Mr.
Lincoln had clerked, had been taken away. The old log
tavern where Mr. Lincoln and I boarded was still there,
and I wanted to patronize it for Auld Lang Syne's sake,
but the old sign with " The New Salem Inn " on it had
been taken down and we could get no accommodations.
The frame of the water mill was still standing:, but there
was no longer a mill there. There is a little history about
that mill and the men who built it which I will relate:
It was at this mill that Mr. Lincoln first got emplovment
when he came to New Salem, and it was at this mill that
Samuel Hill had 100 barrels of flour made which Mr. Lin-
coln took to New Orleans on his flat boat. The mill was
built by John Cameron and George Rutledge, who were
also the proprietors of New Salem. John Cameron sold
his interest in the mill and moved to Fulton county and
settled on the bluffs half a mile south of where Bernadotte
now stands. He was one of the proprietors of Bernadotte.
He built a water mill at that place which was the first grist

ANDREW JACKSON. 141

mill ever built on Spoon river. He moved from Fulton
County to Oregon, and from there to California. He died
in Oakland, California. His grandson, W. W. Cameron,
represented Oakland in the state legislature, and was also
mayor of Oakland.

The next place we came to that is worth mentioning was
old Sangamontown, lying on the Sangamon river, and
about eight miles from Springfield. It was laid out about
the same time that Springfield was. It was at this place
that Mr. Lincoln built the flat boat which he took to ISTew
Orleans, and it was at this place that Peter Cartwright or-
ganized his first church and Sabbath school after coming
to Illinois. His residence was on a farm two miles south
of the town.

We went on to Springfield and there took the old stage
road that ran from Springfield to Vandalia. I remember
traveling that road, in 1829 in company with my father
and a hired man. We were taking a drove of horses from
Havana to St. Louis for sale, as that place was at that
time the principal market for all Illinois. There was not
a house or habitation from Springfield to Macoupin, a dis-
tance of eighteen miles. The whole country was covered with
high grass, in many places extending above the backs of our
horses. And then there was another thing that happened
to us that I will never forget. It was the terrible fight
we had with the horseflies. It appeared as if that whole
country was swarming with horseflies. There Avas the
small fly that would cover the head and ears of the horses,
the green-headed and large black fly. They would torment
the poor horses so that they would run into the high grass
and roll over to get rid of them. Sometimes a half dozen
would be down at once. We had hard work to keep the
horses we rode from doing the same thing. When we got
to Macoupin Point we were told that our trip across the
prairie ought to have been made in the night, that during
the summer season the stages and most all travelers crossed
the prairie at night to avoid the flies.

When we left Sangamon we struck through for Van-
dalia, where the capital of the state had been located for

142 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

many years before it was removed to Springfield. I had
a strong desire to visit the old town of Vandalia that I had
heard so much talk about. For a number of years after
the settlement of the country all the land in the state owned
by individuals upon which the taxes had not been paid
were sold for the taxes at Vandalia. I remember that my
father and Joel Wright of Canton and a few other men of
Fulton county were in the habit of going to Vandalia to
attend these sales. My brother Lewis lived at Vandalia
at one time about a year. It was in 1828 or '29. He
went there to learn the printer's trade. He held the po-
sition I think of Avhat that craft calls the " printer's devil."
He worked for Judge James Hall, who was one of the first
editors in the state. I think he moved out of the state
and my brother gave up the trade. It was at Vandalia
where Mr. Lincoln first went to the legislature, and Major
jSTewton Walker was a member at the same time from Ful-
ton county.

From Vundalia we traveled southeast to the Ohio river.
We found the country from Vandalia to the river settled
generally by people who emigrated from the slave-hold-
ing states, and the improvements were much inferior to
the country we had passe-l between Springfield arid Van-
dalia. Where the country had been settled mostly by
eastern people in the southern part of the state a great
many people were still living in their log houses, and
small farms in cultivation ; part of their land was planted
in tobacco, cotton and flax. The southern counties had
been settled much longer than the northern and middle
counties, but were far behind in improvements. I will
mention a little circumstance that happened as we were
traveling through that part of the country, which w y as a
little amusing to my young companions, and will demon-
strate the amount of enterprise the people possessed :
We stopped one day at a farm house to get a drink of
water, and the lady of the house came out with a gourd
that would hold a half gallon and told us that if we
wanted a good cool drink that we had better go to the
well, and pointed to where it was, and remarked that if we

ANDREW JACKSON. 143

found any polliwigs in the water we were to pound the
gourd against the side of the ladder that was in the well
and they would all go to the bottom. So my brother Pike
climbed down the well on the ladder and found the water
alive with polliwigs, but he obeyed instructions and
pounded the gourd against the side of the ladder and the
polliwigs all disappeared and he brought up the gourd full
of water without a polliwig or a tadpole in it.

We went on the Ohio river and was informed that the
best way to go Knoxville in Tennessee was to go through
Nashville. So when we got to Nashville we put up at
the City Hotel, which we found afterwards was the very
hotel where the wonderful tragedy had taken place be-
tween General Jackson and the Bentons, where Jackson,
in attempting to horsewhip Thomas H. Benton, was shot by
Jesse Benton, a brother of Thomas, putting a ball through
his arm and one in his shoulder. The particulars of the
fight and the cause of it I will give further on.

On our arrival at Nashville, as stated last week, we
put up at the City Hotel, where the terrible tragedy had
taken place between General Jackson and the two Ben-
tons. The landlord had kept the hotel for a good many
years, and was well acquainted with Gen. Jackson. Ther^
were also several men staying at the hotel who had been
personally acquainted with Gen. Jackson for twenty or
thirty years, and they gave us a good deal of information
about him and the circumstances of the fight, as follows :

Thomas H. Benton, the old United States senator, who,
T believe, served longer in the senate than any other man,
had a brother Jesse who lived in Nashville, and who had
got into some trouble with another Nashville man named
Wm. Carroll. Jesse Benton sent Carroll a challenge to
fight, and he accepted the challenge. Carroll and Jack-
son were warm friends., he having served under Jackson
in the army as captain. So he went out to the Hermitage
to see if Jackson would act as his second in the duel, bur
Jackson objected, saying that he was a friend of the
Bentons and he did not want to do anything that would

144 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

offend them.

Nashville and see Jesse Benton and try to have the mat-
ter settled between them without any fighting, and he
came to town and tried to have the matter settled between
them. But Benton gave him to understand that Capt.
Carroll would have to fight or show the white feather,
saying that he would run him out of town. Benton made
use of some language that Jackson thought was rather
insulting, and so he consented to act as Carroll's second
in the duel. They went out and took a crack at each
other. Benton was wounded quite severely in the side,
though not dangerously, arid Capt. Carroll was slightly
wounded in the left thumb. Benton was laid up twenty
days with his wound. Thomas II. Benton, the brother
of Jesse, was in Washington city at the time of the duel.
When he received the news that his brother Jesse had
fought a duel with Capt. Carroll and was badly wounded,
and that Carroll had but a slight wound in his left thumb,
and that General Jackson had been a second to his
brother's gntagonist, his wrath and indignation knew no
bonds, and not having the facts in the case ; he wrote Jack-
son very insulting and abusive letters, accusing him of all
kinds of treachery and dishonesty, and some of his letters
were published in the Nashville papers. These things
aroused all the old tiger there was in Gen. Jackson, and
while his wrath and high temper had the control of his
better judgment he made a solemn vow in the presence
of some of his friends that- "By the eternal, the first time
I get my eyes on Tom Benton I will horsewhip him !" So
in about a month after the duel Avas fought Thomas H.
Benton came to Nashville and put up at the City Hotel.
His brother Jesse by that time had recovered from his
wound so that he was able to walk about the streets. In
a few days after, Gen. Jackson rode to town to get his
mail, left his horse at the Nashville Inn, but kept his
horsewhip in his hand. After he got his mail he walked
past the City Hotel and there observed Thomas H. Ben-
ton and his brother Jesse standing in front of the hotel
a-talking He walked up to Benton and told him that he

ANDREW JACKSON. 145

had to take back those scandalous assertions that he had
made about him or he would have to take a horsewhip-
ping. At that Benton made some pretense as if he were
going to draw a pistol. Then Jackson drew his revolver
and told him that if he attempted to draw a weapon he
would get the contents of his pistol. Jesse Benton, who
was standing near, seeing the predicament that his
brother was in and with little chance to defend himself,
drew his pistol and blazed away at Jackson and brought
him to the ground, pistol, horsewhip and all. His pistol
was loaded with two balls, one of which went through
Jackson's arm and the other lodged in his shoulder. Jack-
son carried that ball in his shoulder for twenty years.
The fight created a wonderful excitement in Nashville.
The news ran like wildfire, and in ten minutes after
Jackson was shot a thousand men were at the hotel and
many fights took place between the friends of the two
parties. One of Jackson's friends knocked Jesse Ben-
ton down and pounded him almost to death. Thos. H.
Benton in the fight and skirmishing fell througli an open
doorway into the basement of the hotel, which saved him
from getting a terrible whipping. The landlord told us
that Jackson Avas confined at the hotel about three weeks
before he could be removed to his home.

Soon after this occurrence Thos. H. Benton left the
state of Tennessee and moved to Missouri, and he and
Jackson did not meet again until sixteen years after, when
they met as senators in Washington and had selected seats,
unknown to either of them, that were located side by side ;
and they were both placed on some important committee,
so that they had to come face to face. But they at once
shook hands and were forever after good friends.

The next morning we started on our way to the Her-
mitage, which was some ten or eleven miles from Nash-
ville. We traveled on a fine turnpike road which ran
through a fertile country. On the road between Nash-
ville and the Hermitage we passed the spot where there
had been built at one time a fort or blockhouse, where
the people gathered when the Indians were troublesome.

146 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

This fort, we were told, was afterwards purchased by
Gen. Jackson and a man named Coffee and converted
into a storehouse, and there they kept store for some years
under the name of Jackson. & Coffee. They bought large
quantities of cotton and produce and shipped it down the
Cumberland and Mississippi rivers in flatboats to New
Orleans. Near the fort was one of the finest racetracks
in the state, and there they also had a place erected for
the exhibition of game cocks, where people came from
hundreds of miles and from other states with their race
horses and game cocks. Thousands of dollars would be
bet on the races and cock fights.

We found the Hermitage was located about a half a
mile from the turnpike road that ran from Nashville to
Knoxville, but he had a private road that ran from the
turnpike up to his house. Before we got to his house we
passed a small brick Presbyterian church which we were
told that Gen. Jackson had built on his own land for the
accommodation of his wife after she united with that
church ; and it was at this little church where he was con-
verted and joined the Presbyterian church, of Avhich L
may have something more to say. We drove up to the
house and hitched our horses, opened the little iron gate
and went in. We found the general sitting on his front
piazza reading a newspaper. We introduced ourselves to
him as well as we could, and told him we were from
Illinois and on our way to Knoxville to take home
some fine stock that I had purchased from Col.
George W. Churchwell of that place, and told him
of our relationship to Capt. Charles Kirkpatrick,
who had served under him, and gave him the number of
the regiment and the company that he commanded. The
general said he remembered him very well, and told us of
several expeditions they had been on together, and ap-
peared to be pleased that we had called to see him, and
asked us to have our horses put up and stay to dinner with
him. But I told him as it was early in the day we would
rather drive a few miles further before dinner. He said
he was always glad to hear from any of the old comrades

ANBEEW JACKSON. 147

who were with him in the army, and was glad to meet any
of their relatives. He asked my brother-in-law a good
many questions about his father ; wanted to know in what
part of Illinois he lived, what his occupation was, and how
many children he had. He said he knew his father very
well, and also his two brothers then living in Tennessee.
He also said he was very well acquainted with his uncle,
George W. Churchwell, who had held the office of Indian
agent when he was president, and had practiced law before
him when he was judge. He also said that he knew his
aunt, Col. Churchwell' s wife ; that they were both Presby-
terians. He asked us if we would take a walk with him
out in his orchard, saying he had some pretty good eating
apples. But before we went to the orchard he took us
through several rooms of his house. In one room he had
a large library of books, with a number of fine pictures
hanging around the walls. In another room he had a
great lot of old Avar relics, such as old swords, pistols and
old muskets, all with flint locks, and a great lot of old
regimental clothing that was hanging around the walls.
Some of it looked like it might have been worn in the times
of the Revolutionary War. The Hermitage was a good,
substantial building, but everything about it was very
plain. Such a house could have been built in Illinois at
that time for $4,000. He told me that his wife's nephew,
Mr. Donelson and family, were living with him. He took
us to his barn and showed us a span of carriage horses that
he had, but they were not as good as the span I was driving.
His barn was quite plain no better than many Illinois
farmers had at that time. We went from the barn to the
orchard. He had a very fine orchard and a most excellent
quality of fruit. He told us to tie up in our handkerchiefs
and take all the apples we wanted to eat on our way. So
we laid in a pretty fair supply which lasted till we got
across the mountains. I told the general that he had some
good eating apples and that I would like to take a half
dozen home to my wife and boy ; that I had a boy sixteen
months old, and I could tell them when I got home that the
apples came from Gen. Jackson's orchard. So he took me

148 EAKLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

to a tree of large red apples which he called winesaps ; so
I gathered the apples and stored them away carefully in my
satchel and brought them home. As we were returning
from the orchard to the house he took us through a lot that
lay a few rods east of the house and there showed us the
grave of his wife. It was a plat of ground ahout 8x10 feet,
enclosed with a marble wall rising about three feet above
the ground, and a partition wall in the middle ; on one side
his wife was laid and was covered with a marble slab on
which was engraved, " Mrs. Rachel Jackson, died 23rd
December, 1828, aged sixty-one years." The general told
us that when he died that he expected to be laid by his
wife in the enclosed plat of ground. He spoke of his poor
health and said that he did not think it would be many
months until he would be lying there. He was very thin
in flesh and pale at that time. He had us come into the
the house again and brought in a pitcher of cold water.
I asked him if he had ever been in Illinois. He said he
had not, but he had become acquainted with a good many
Illinois men when he was in Congress and while he was
president, and named over several that I knew. He also
said that he had been acquainted Avith a Methodist preach-
er who had been a delegate to the ISTashville conference by
the name of Peter Cartwright, who was now living in Illi-
nois, and asked me if I knew him. I told him that I knew
him very well ; that he had often staid at my father's house
and had preached in our log cabin in the early pioneer
times, before there were any church buildings put up. He
then went on and told the story that when Cartwright was
preaching one time in Nashville he went to hear him, and
as he was walking down the aisle the preacher in the pulpit
by the side of Cartwright gave his coat a jerk and told him
that Gen. Jackson was coming in; at which Cartwright
spoke out so loud that all the church could hear him:
" Who is Gen. Jackson ? If he don't get his soul con-
verted God will damn him as quick as He would a Guinea
negro ! " I suppose the general thought I had never heard
the story ; but I heard it some years before from the Cart-
wright side, and was pleased to hear it from the other side.

ANDREW JACKSON. 149

The general went down to the carriage with us to see our
horses, and admired them very much, for they were splen-
did animals. He told us to give his kind regards to Col.
Churchwell and wife when we got to Knoxville, and also
to Capt. Charles Kirkpatrick when we got home.

There was one circumstance which I omitted to mention
relating to my visit to the Hermitage, which was the splen-
did arrangement which Jackson had made for the pleasure
and good of his slaves. Each family had a one-story
frame house that was painted either white or red, and with
it about an acre of ground, all fenced in with palings or
board fence and whitewashed; and around each of these
houses were a lot of fruit trees and shrubbery. We were
told that the general was always good and kind to his slaves,
and would never permit any of them to be sold to go to the
southern states, and that his slaves were strongly attached
to him, and that nothing would induce them to leave their
old master. Notwithstanding the terrible temper that the
general possessed, which made him like a Kansas
cyclone when he was imposed upon and aroused,
he still possessed a kind and tender heart, Many
people told us, who had known the general and his good
wife during all their thirty-seven years of married
life, that she was a grand and noble Christian lady, and was
honored and loved by everybody ; that their affection for
each other was of the tenderest kind ; that the general al-
ways treated her as if she was his pride and glory, and that
words could faintly describe her devotion to him ; that it
was seldom that a husband and wife lived as happily to-
gether as they had done. We were told that when Mrs.
Jackson died no such demonstration had ever been known
at a funeral in that part of the country before ; that the
mayor of Nashville issued a proclamation requesting busi-
ness men to close their stores and asked that the bells of the
city be tolled from 1 to 2 P. M., during the funeral. Every
vehicle in the city was employed in taking people to the
Hermitage, where the funeral was held. It was estimated
that 10,000 people attended the funeral. The death of

150 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

Mrs. Jackson was a terrible shock to the general, and some
of his slaves went, almost frantic with grief and despair.
Such weeping and wailing had never been heard at a fun-
eral, nor so much affection shown by slaves on the death of
a mistress.

There was a little circumstance that took place in connec-
tion with the life of Gen. Jackson that I thought I would
mention. I heard my father-in-law, Capt, Charles Kirk-
patrick, speak of it, and also his brothers and some others
that we met on our visit to Tennessee. It was on one of
Gen. Jackson's expeditions against the Cherokee Indians,
and will show that he did possess a kind and tender heart.
The general and his soldiers were pursuing a band of Indi-
ans, and surrounded them ; and as the Indians were attempt-
ing to escape every one was killed. In going to their wigwams
they discovered a little boy papoose, and as the sol-
diers were about to dispatch him, the general commanded
them not to hurt the little boy. And he took the little
Indian boy home with him, and raised him, and sent him
to school, and became very much attached to him. The
little Indian boy became very expert- in the riding of race-
horses. He could get more speed out of them than any
rider in the country ; as the general was keeping some race-
horses at the time, the boy made himself quite useful to the
general. When the boy got to be fifteen years old the gen-
eral thought he had better learn a trade; so he took him
around among the artisans and mechanics in Nashville to
choose the trade that he would prefer ; so he chose the trade
of saddlery and harness-maker, but after working at it a
year he died. It was thought that if he had lived that the
general would have made provisions for him in his will.

In giving this story about Gen. Jackson and the little
Indian boy I might with some propriety make use of a
habit peculiar to Mr. Lincoln ; after listening to a story
told by a friend, he would say : " Now, that puts me in
mind of a little anecdote," and would go on and relate one
of his quaint and humorous stories to match the one told
him. So the circumstance about Gen. Jackson and the
Indian boy has brought to my mind a similar circumstance

ANDREW JACKSON. 151

that took place with Alexander Kirkpatrick, who was with
me at the time we visited Gen. Jackson. Whether the
story above told about Jackson and the Indian boy had any
bearing on the story that I am about to tell I cannot say.

Alexander Kirkpatrick, in 1847, went to study medicine
with Dr. W. H. Nance, at Vermont, Illinois, and in 1850
went to California, and practiced medicine in San Fran-
cisco and also in Redwood City. He became very
eminent in his profession, having at one time the
largest practice in San Francisco. In 1861 there was or-
dered out in California a regiment of soldiers to go into the
northern border of the state to fight the Indians, who had
been murdering a good many families. Dr. Kirkpatrick
got the appointment of surgeon to go with the army. On
that expedition they came upon the camp of the hostile
Indians and surrounded them, and as they attempted to
escape everyone was killed. The soldiers went inside of
the wigwams and there found a little girl papoose. One
of the soldiers was about to run his bayonet through her
when Dr. Kirkpatrick jumped in before him and caught
the little girl up in his arms and saved her life. Some of
the soldiers who had lost relatives by the Indians were de-
termined that she should share their fate ; but the doctor
drew his revolver and said that he would protect the girl
at the risk of his life. He brought the little Indian pa-
poose home and raised and educated her the same as he did
his own children. The doctor told me that the child had
so many droll and quaint ways about her and was so differ-
ent from other children that he gave her the name of
' Topsy," after the girl spoken of by Harriet Beecher
Stowe in " Uncle Tonrs Cabin." So she always went by
the name of Topsy Kirkpatrick up to the time of her mar-
riage with a white man. I have asked the doctor if he
thought that the stories we heard in Tennessee about Jack-
son and the Indian boy had anything to do with his rescue
of the Indian girl, and he said he thought that it had.

Dr. Kirkpatrick died in San Francisco in 1894, leaving
a widow and two sons and three daughters and Topsy to
mourn his loss. He was a kind-hearted, noble and e'ener-

152 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

ous man, and was loved and honored by all who knew him.
He left a beautiful home to his family and life insurance
to the amount of $20,000.

CHAPTER II.

BRIEF HISTORY OF PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1828.

SOME FURTHER INCIDENTS CONCERNING JACKSON.

OUR DELIGHTFUL VISIT IN THE SOUTH. HOW MY SON

FRANK* FINALLY CAME TO PARTAKE OF SOUTHERN HOS-
PITALITY AT THE HANDS OF " AUNT MOODY." DEATH

OF ANDREW JACKSON SHORTLY AFTER OUR RETURN FROM
THE SOUTH.

I will give a little history of the presidential election of
1828, when Andrew Jackson ran against John Quincy
Adams. At that time I was about twelve years old, and
very distinctly remember the election held in Lewistown,
Illinois. It was probably the most exciting election, and
probably more bitter feeling indulged in, than at any elec-
tion that has ever taken place in this country. For several
months before the election almost every occupation was
dropped and the men occupied their time electioneering.
Almost every day long lines of men could be seen marching
after the fife and drum and led by some officer that had
served in the war of 1 81 2. The Jackson party would erect
their hickory poles and the Adams party their tall maple
poles, and stands would be erected under their respective
poles, and the best speakers in the country would be brought
out, and each party would have a barbecue of a roast ox or
half-a-dozen sheep about every week. At that time a good
many who belonged to their respective parties had been
soldiers in the war of 1812, and on their march would wear

*Now the Hon. Frank W. Ross, of Salt Lake City, Utah. He was
the youngest elective officer being a Lieutenant at the age of fifteen
in the Federal Army, and served with great bravery and distinction in
all the battles of his regiment during the entire war, from '61 to '65.
C. K. O.

ANDREW JACKSON. 153

their soldier's uniform which they wore in the army. My
father had served as major tinder Gen. Brown, of ISTew
York. I can remember very well how he looked, dressed
in his military suit, with his sword buckled on and hanging
by his side, wearing his soldier hat decorated with a large
cockade on one side of his hat and with two feather plumes
extending eight or ten inches above the crown of his hat,
decked off with the red, white and blue all showing the
rank he held in the army. He rode a large white horse,
with a pistol holster swung across the pommel of his saddle,
in which were two large horse-pistols with their flint-locks.
So in marching in parade after the fife and drum he made
a pretty fair military appearance.

The election in Lewistown at that time was held at the
log court house. They had no such thing in that part of
the county at that time as saloons ; but the candidates and
their friends had a different method of treating their
friends and voters if they wished to have something to
drink. A platform was erected some thirty feet long in
front of the court house, upon which was placed barrels,
kegs, demijohns and jugs, and the names of the candidates
written on their respective vessels. I remember thatthe first
vessel that Avas placed upon the platform was a thirty-gallon
barrel of whisky, with the name of " ANDREW JACKSON "
written upon it; and in a short time another barrel of the
same size was placed by its side, with the name of " JOHN
QUINCY ADAMS " written upon it in large letters. Then
came the ten and five-gallon kegs ; then the demijohns and
jugs, with the names of the candidates who had bought the
liquor, and everybody was welcome to all they wished to
drink. At that time whisky was selling at thirty-five cents
a gallon by the barrel, or fifty cents a gallon at retail ; and it
was a marvelous fact that after the election was over scarcely
any person had been intoxicated during the day. At that
time ballots were not used as at the present time, but each
voter, after his name was registered, would call out the
names of the candidates, one at a time, that he wished to
vote for. There were no national issues at that time to
divide the two parties, but each man ran on his own per-

154 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

sonal popularity. The campaign was carried on with a
great deal of severity and bitterness. Adams was accused
of corruption and extravagance in his former administra-
tion, and of being proud and selfish, and of being no friend
of the poor and of the laboring man. On the other side
Jackson was accused of every crime and offense and
impropriety that ever a man was known to be
guilty of. The most was made of his many
duels, and hand-bills were issued and sent broad-
cast over the country telling of his cruelty and bad
character. An account was given of the six men he had
ordered to be shot in the army for mutiny and desertion,
and their coffins were pictiired out on the handbills. But
the most cruel and malicious stories that were told about
him were that he and his wife had lived together in open
adultery before they were married. This story aroused
more anger and bitter feeling against the Adams party than
any other thing that had been told, for it was a falsehood,
and his friends sternly resented that slander. Many a
hard fist-fight took place between the friends of the two
parties in consequence of that story.

I was told at the time when I traveled through Tennes-
see, in 1843, and by persons who had known Mrs. Rachel
Jackson from the time that she was fifteen years old up to
the time of her death, that there had never lived in the state
of Tennessee a lady that stood higher or was more respected
than Mrs. Jackson; that she was a pure and kind-hearted
Christian lady. Those infamous falsehoods published about
Gen. Jackson and his wife did more to arouse the indigna-
tion of the whole state of Tennessee against Adams and in
support of Jackson than anything else. When the election
came off there was less than 3,000 votes cast for Mr. Adams
in that state. Some of the towns cast their entire vote for
Jackson. I was told a story of how a stranger had come
into one of the towns about election time and put up at the
hotel and took a walk through the town. He found a great
many women on the streets, but scarcely a man could be
seen. He came back to the hotel and enquired of the land-
lord w r hv it was that so manv women were seen on the

ANDREW JACKSON. 155

streets and no men ; and the landlord told him that the men
had gone out of town to hunt a couple of criminals, and
when the stranger wanted to know what great crime these
two men had committed that the whole town had gone in
pursuit of them, the landlord told him they had voted for
Mr. Adams ! The people had been anxious to carry the
place unanimously for Jackson, as many of the other towns
had done, and the two rascals had spoiled the record, and
the people were so indignant that they were hunting them
so that they could tar and feather them, and the women
were waiting on the streets anxious to see it done. But the
men escaped to the woods and could not be found.

It was a fact that Mrs. Rachel Jackson was married three
times once to Lewis Roberts and twice to Glen. Jackson.
The peculiar circumstances of her marriage to Gen. Jack-
son caused a good deal of gossip. But when the circum-
stances were understood there was nothing wrong about it,
as I can show as I proceed with the narrative.

I can remember the men who took an active part in the
politics of Fulton county in the election of 1828, and will
give the names of a few of the leaders. On the side of Mr.
Adams there were Stephen Phelps and his sons Alexis, My-
ron, Sumner and William : also Win. Proctor, Joel Wright,
Stephen Dewey, Peter Wood, Ossian M. Ross and his
brothers, Joseph, Thomas and John; Hugh R. Coulter,
John McJSTeil and David W. Barnes. On the Jackson side
were William Walters ( the hero of Rev. Wm. J. Rutledge's
letters) and his brothers Daniel, Thomas and John, and
an uncle, Abner Walters ; the Waughtels, John and Will-
iam Totten, and John Barker. The Adams men were gen-
erally from the East and the Jackson men from the South-
ern states. There are only four of the men and boys I
knew at that time who are now living, viz : Mason Eveland
and Henry Warren, of Iowa, Henry Andrews, of Canton,
and my brother, Leonard F. Ross, of Lewistown.

In continuing my narrative of the trip I took through
Tennessee at the time I visited Gen. Jackson I may allude
to incidents that will not greatly interest the

156 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

reader. But it will be remembered that I am writing
these sketches chiefly for the benefit of my children, grand-
children and great-grandchildren, so the reader will par-
don these departures from the main theme of these
sketches.

So I will take up our line of travel from the time we bade
Gen. Jackson goodby at the Hermitage and turned our
horses' heads towards Knoxville. The first place we stop-
ped at was Lebanon. I have read somewhere in divine his-
tory something about the cedars of Lebanon, and when we
drove into town we began to think we had found that place.
Lebanon contained about 1,000 inhabitants, and was built
in the middle of a large cedar grove. Part of the houses
were built of logs and part were frame. The logs were
all cedar and the frame houses were all built of cedar;
the roofs were covered with cedar shingles and the fences
and gates were all of cedar. So we concluded that Leb-
anon was a very appropriate name for the town.

We stopped over night at a hotel on the top of the Cum-
berland mountains. I went out to the barn after supper
to see how our horses had been cared for. This was my
custom, as we had a long journey to make and a good deal
depended upon the condition of our team. I asked the
negro hostler how much corn he had fed the horses. He
said he had given them six ears apiece. I told him that
he should have fed them twice that amount, but he an-
swered, " Massa, they are great big ears." I asked how
large the ears were. He said that they were almost as long
as his arm and as big around as his leg. Then I said I
wanted to see some of that corn ; so he took me to the crib
and I saw that the negro was not far out of the way, for
they were the most wonderful ears of corn in size that I
had ever seen. There was about as much feed in one ear as
in two ears of common corn. I asked the landlord how
it was that such large corn would grow on top of the Cum-
berland mountains. He said that there was a dark sandy
loam on the mountains just the kind of soil to produce
large corn. So I went to the crib and selected one of the
largest ears I could find, and shelled it, and packed it away

/ ANDREW JACKSON. 157

in my satchel, intending to bring it home and try it on
our Illinois soil, as I was at that time carrying on a large
farm a half mile east of Havana in Mason county, i
planted the corn by itself so that it would not get mixed
with the other corn, and from that planting I raised sev-
eral bushels. The next year I planted part of it and
distributed the balance among some of my neighbor
farmers, as I wanted to have it introduced all over the
county. They gave it the name of the " Tennessee Mam-
moth Corn." I am sure that after I commenced raising
that corn that the yield to the acre was at least a third
more than it had been with common corn. Afterwards
many Fulton county farmers came over to M^ason county
to get their seed corn.

We finally arrived at Col. Churchwell' s with everything
in good trim. Our horses had stood the trip excellently.
Col. Churchwell and wife and about half a dozen negro
servants were ready to meet us as they had heard that
we were coming. We still had on hand some of the apples
that Gen. Jackson had given us and we distributed them
among the colonel's family and the servants, as they all
wanted to taste the apples because they had come from
Gen. Jackson's orchard. We delivered the messages the
general had sent to Col. Churchwell and wife, and that
led them both to tell us some marvelous stories about the
general, for they had known him most all their lives. The
colonel told us of a time that he was attending court in a
neighboring town and Gen. Jackson was the presiding
judge. A certain man had committed a crime, and a
warrant had been placed in the hands of the sheriff, and
he had summoned a half dozen men to assist him in mak-
ing the arrest, for the man was a desperate character and
was armed with several pistols and a bowie knife. The
sheriff came into court and reported to the judge that the
man could not be taken that he and his men could not
afford to risk their lives with such a character. The judge
then said to him, " Summons Andrew Jackson to assist
in taking that man." The sheriff did so, and Jackson took
his hat and walked out of the court house and across the

158 EABLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

street to where the man was surrounded by many friends.
Judge Jackson walked up to him, put his hand on his
shoulder, and said to him, " You are my prisoner ; you
must go with me to the court house." The man made no
resistance but walked deliberately to the court house where
the judge took the pistols and knife from him and handed
them to the sheriff. The man was asked afterwards why
he did not resist Gen. Jackson as he had done the other
men. He said he could see fight in the eyes of the judge,
but could not see it in the eyes of the other men.

Col. Church well's wife could also tell us of many cir-
cumstances connected with the life of the general. She
told us about what a time the minister had had with him
to get him to agree to forgive his enemies when he was
about to join the church. He told the minister that he
was willing to forgive all his political enemies, but his
enemies that had been guilty of defaming his private
character and his wife, and of lying about his mother,
he did not 4;hink he could forgive. But the minister
told him that if he expected to have his sins forgiven he
would have to forgive his enemies, and pointed him to
many passages of scripture that treated on that subject.
So the general finally agreed to forgive his enemies and
was received as a member of the Presbyterian church.
It took place at the little brick church near the Hermitage
that he had built for his wife soon after they were married.
I was told that Jackson and his wife were regular attend-
ants at church while she was living, and that he was al-
ways a friend to all religious institutions, and that all
his ancestors, including his mother, were Presbyterians.
I will quote a few sentences from the biography of Peter
Cartwright to show what the old pioneer Methodist
preacher had to say about him, as follows :

" Gen. Jackson was certainly a very extraordinary man.
He was no doubt in his prime of life a very wicked man,
but he always showed a great respect for the Christian
religion and the feelings of religious people, especially
ministers of the gospel. I will here relate a little inci-
dent that shows his respect for religion. I had preached

ANDREW JACKSON. 159

one Sabbath near the Hermitage, and in company with
several gentlemen and ladies went by special invitation
to dine with the general. Among the company there was
a young sprig of a lawyer from Nashville, of very ordi-
nary intellect, and was trying very hard to make an infidel
of himself. As I was the only preacher present the young
lawyer kept pushing his conversation on me in order to
get "into an argument. I tried to evade an argument, in
the first place considering it a breach of good manners
to interrupt the social conversation of the company, and,
in the second place, I plainly saw that his head was much
softer than his heart, and that there were no laurels to
be won by vanquishing or demolishing such a combatant ;
I persisted in evading an argument. This seemed to in-
spire the young man with more confidence in himself, for
my evasiveness he construed into fear. I saw Gen. Jack-
son's eyes strike fire as he sat by and heard the thrusts
made at the Christian religion. At length the young
lawyer asked me this question :

" ' Mr. Cartwright, do you believe there is any such
place as hell ?'

"<Yes, sir; I do.'

" To which he responded :

" ' Well, I thank God I have too much good sense to
believe any such thing.'

" I was pondering in my mind whether I would answer
him or not when Gen. Jackson for the first time broke
into the conversation, and, directing his words to the
young man, said with great earnestness:

" ' Well, sir, I thank God that there is such a place of
torment as hell.'

" This sudden answer, made with great earnestness,
seemed to astonish the youngster, and he exclaimed:

" ' Why, Gen. Jackson, what do you want of such a
place of torment as hell ?'

" To which the general replied, as quick as lightning :
' To put such a rascal as you in that opposes and
villifies the Christian religion !' '

After a cordial welcome to myself and my two young

160 EARLY PIONEEBS AND EVENTS.

comrades we had a delightful time going with Col. Church-
well over his splendid farm of 500 acres, located two miles
north of Knoxville, Tennessee. His negroes cultivated
about 300 acres, and the balance was in timber and seeded
down to blue grass. He was engaged in raising fine-
blooded stock. He had a fine dwelling house and ten or
twelve frame houses on his place that his slave families
occupied. He had fine barns and stables, and all his
buildings and improvements were very good. He had
about forty slaves of both sexes and of all ages. He was
good and humane to his slaves and would never permit
any of them to be sold to 1 go to the southern plantations.
His nephew was his overseer, and he. told me that he very
seldom had to punish a slave. Col. Churchwell was a
member of the Methodist church, and his wife was a Pres-
byterian. It was his habit to hold family prayers morn-
ing and evening and he asked a blessing at his table. He
and' his wife were regular attendants at church. Some-
times both would go to the Methodist church and then
to the Presbyterian church. Many of the slaves were
church members, some belonging to one church and some
to the other. Both Col. Churchwell and his wife believed
that slavery was a divine institution, and that there was
no harm in owning slaves, and the only harm there was
about it was the abuse sometimes shown them by their
masters. There was a very radical difference of opinion
among my wife's relatives in regard to slavery, for on
her father's side I have never known any of them to buy
or sell a slave, although many of them were able to do so;
but on her mother's ( Churchwell' s) side I never knew
any of them who would not buy slaves if they had the
money to do so.

The colonel and his good wife, " Aunt Moody," as we
called her, did everything in their power to make us have
a good and happy time. Their southern hospitality was
manifested in many ways.

As stated in my first letter, the colonel and his wife
were in the-habit of visiting relatives in Illinois every two
or three years; and I think the last time they came was

ANDREW JACKSON. 161

in 1856, when they visited my family at Vermont, Fulton
county. Mrs. Chuchwell was one of the kindest, best
women I have ever known. She became very much at-
tached to our oldest boy, Frank, who was then about half
grown. She wanted Frank to promise her that when he
was grown that he would go to Tennessee and visit his
old Aunt Moody. She promised him that she would have
the negroes dance for him, as she did when his father
and uncles visited her, and would make him have a grand
and good time.

Well, as time rolled away the boy did go and visit his
old aunt, but he did not go in just the way she expected
him to come, and he took more company with him than
his old aunt was in the habit of entertaining, and he did
not wait until he was grown, as his aunt had told him
to do.

When the civil war came on and an appeal was made for
volunteers, the boy caught the war fever and had it very
badly. Because he was so young we did all in our power
to persuade him from becoming a soldier ; but at last his
parents gave their consent and he was enrolled as a member
of the old 84th regiment Illinois volunteers, which was
made up from men from Fulton and McDonough coun-
ties under Col. Waters of Macomb. The regiment was at
once ordered to go to east Tennessee, and singular as it may
seem took up their headquarters right on Col. Churchwell's
fine farm. They certainly could not have found a better lo-
cality for a military post if they had searched the state
over, for the place was well watered with springs and
creeks, with plenty of timber, and with an abundance of
houses, barns and stables, and everything that a regiment
of men could desire for their comfort and convenience.
Col. Waters took, possession of their fine old mansion for
headquarters of himself and staff, though he was generous
enough to let Mrs. Clmrchwell retain a few of the rooms.
Col. Churchwell had died about the commencement of the
war, and his only son, William, was an officer in the con-
federate army, and was killed before the war closed. Mrs.
C., with her nephew as overseer, and her negroes, were run-

162 EARLY PIONEEKS AND EVENTS.

ning her farm when the regiment came down upon them
like a cloud of 3ansas locusts would upon a fertile field,
and with almost as great destruction. It was a terrible or-
deal for the old lady to see her beautiful place desecrated,
her fine house occupied by soldiers and the soldiers'
tents spread over the fields, and her fine carriage
horses taken for cavalry horses, and her large Nor-
man horses, which her negroes needed so badly to work the
farm, taken to haul some old cannon around over the coun-
try; and when she would remonstrate against such treat-
ment the officers would tell her that it was a military neces-
sity. And when her corn and hay would be taken from
her barns, and her rails burned, and her dairy and chicken
house looted, and her cows milked by the " Yankee blue-
coats," then she would lay her grievances before Col.
Waters, and he would try to appease her wrath and indig-
nation by telling her that it was a military necessity.
These indignities caused her at last to express her mind
quite freely as to what she thought of them ; so they gave
her the name of " old rebel," for she was very bitter against
the whole union army.

One day the old lady asked Col. Waters where those fel-
lows came from that had settled down upon her premises,
and he told her they were from Illinois. She then told
him she had relatives in Illinois by the names of Kirkpat-
rick and Ross, and wanted to know of the colonel if he had
any soldiers by either name. The colonel told her there
was a young lad in the regiment whose name was Frank
Ross. She said she would like to see him; so the colonel
sent one of his officers to hunt Frank up, and after a con-
siderable search he was found in one of the camps frying
chickens. He was told there was an old rebel woman up
at headquarters who wanted to see him. Frank knew noth-
ing about whose farm it was they were camping on ; so he
went to the house without any idea as to whom he would
meet. But when he came face to face with the " old rebel
woman," lo and behold, it was his old Aunt Moody Church-
well the good old aunt that had invited him to come and
visit her, and had promised that when he came she would

ANDREW JACKSON. 163

have the negroes dance and sing for him! But here he
was, with a lot of companions, desecrating and wrecking
her fine farm and frying her chickens !

But when she saw that he was really Frank, the kind
and noble impulses of her heart came to her as in times
past, and she showed him the utmost kindness, and told
Col. Waters that if the boy should be wounded or get sick
to send him to her house and that she would see that he was
well taken care of.

Now 1 must go back and give a sketch of our visit at Col.
Churchwell's, where we remained two weeks, visiting him
and my wife's relatives in Tennessee. Before starting
home the colonel wanted us to have a good time, so he gave
us two grand diversions. The first was a negro corn-shuck-
ing and the other was a negro dance, or, as they called it,
a "negro shindig." If any Northern man ever traveled in
the South in slave days and missed a negro corn-shucking
or a negro dance, he missed a good deal. The pile of corn
was forty feet long, eight feet wide and four or five feet
high. They divided it off into two piles and drove a
stake in the middle, then chose sides and went
at it with a rush. The side that came out last
in shucking its pile had to furnish the egg-nogg
to treat the whole company. As soon as the negroes
commenced shucking the corn, working like beavers, they
also commenced singing their plantation songs, and they
sang with so much force and power that they could be heard
about a mile. While the negroes were thus engaged their
wives were preparing for them a bountiful supper. I do
not think I ever saw a happier set of people than they were.
The colonel had on his negro quarters one house with a
large room in it that he said his negroes used to hold meet/-
ings in on Sundays, when some white or black preacher
would come out from Knoxville and preach for them, and
they used the same room to hold their dances in. His rule
was to let them have a dance the last Saturday night in each
month. He said it encouraged them and made them better
servants. So one evening before we came away he gath-

164 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

ered the negroes together, men, women, boys and girls, to
show us how they could dance. He had one old negro,
Ned, who played the violin for them. He told us that he
was seventy years old, and had played on "de fiddle" since
he was a boy, and seemed to be very proud of his skill.
The music and the dancing were both grand, and we looked
on with a great deal of delight.

But the time had come for our departure homeward. I
had sold the horses and carriage that we had taken with us,
and we rode home some of the horses I bought of Ool.
Churchwell. We bought fourteen head horses, mares,
jacks and jennies. We traveled the first day thirty miles
and stopped over night at Arthur Kirkpatrick's, a brother
of my wife's father. He was keeping a country store and
running a farm. He had some negroes hired to work on
the farm, but told us that he would never buy or sell a slave.
He had known Gen. Jackson for several years and told us
many stories about him ; in fact, we could hardly meet an
old settler in that state but who could tell us more or less
about him.

We came home a different route from the one we went
out on. It was nearer, but not so good a road. We came
back through Kentucky and through the grand prairies of
eastern Illinois. Sometimes we found it twenty miles be-
tween the houses. We struck the road we had gone out on at
Springfield.

On our way home we passed Major Newton Walker and
Hugh Lamaster, who had been to Kentucky and bought a
herd of Durham cattle. I think they were the first blooded
cattle ever brought into Fulton county. When we reached
home I found my wife and little boy, Ossian, anxiously
awaiting our arrival, for we had been gone six weeks, and
it was a time of joy and rejoicing when we got home, for
I had never been away from home before to exceed a day
since he was born. And when I opened my satchel and
took out the six large apples that Gen. Jackson had given
me to take home to my wife and boy (as mentioned in my
second letter), our little boy hardly knew whether they
were to eat or play with, for he had never seen an apple be-

ANDBEW JACKSON. 165

fore. At that time there was not a bearing orchard in
Mason county. A few orchards had been planted out, but
none of them had commenced to bear. But he soon found
that they were good to eat, and his little teeth went for them
with a vengeance. I told him that the apples came from
Gen. Jackson's orchard that Jackson had sent them to
Ossian and his mother. He had just commenced to learn
to talk, and he learned to prounoune the words "Jackson"
and "apples " a little before any other words, and after the
apples were gone he would often climb up in my lap and
put his little arms around my neck and say, "Papa, go to
Jackson and get more apples for Ossian." But the apples
that came from the orchard of the old hero were the first
and the last that he ever had the opportunity to put his little
teeth into, for in six weeks after my return he was taken
from us by that cruel disease, the croup. He was eighteen
months old when he died. He was unusually smart and
bright for one of his age, and his death was a terrible be-
reavement to us, for our very hearts and lives were wrapped
up in our little boy. He was our first child, and no tongue
could express the grief and sorrow that filled our hearts
when he was taken away. Another incident about the
child : On the first visit of Col. Churchwell and wife to us
in 1842, the little fellow was about six months old. Mrs.
Churchwell had a bright, new half-dollar bearing the date
"1842." So she got a hole drilled through the rim of it,
put a ribbon through it, and hung it around little Ossian's
neck, saying it would be a keepsake from her and would
show the year the boy was born and the year of their first
visit to us. After the lad died his mother laid the coin
away, intending to keep it as a sacred memorial as long as
she lived, and did keep it for almost forty years. But it
was stolen by a servant. His mother would have rather
lost a $20 gold piece than that sacred coin.

After we got back from our trip I called on Father Kirk-
patrick to give him a few tales of our trip and to tell him
about his brothers and sisters, and the great number of
nephews and nieces we had met out there, and how anxious
they were for him and his wife to go out and make them a

166 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

visit, and of the kind invitation Gen. Jackson had sent, that
if he came to Tennessee again to come and see him. This
produced a desire in the old gentleman's heart that he
would like to go back to his native state where he had spent
his boyhood. So a year after he secured a fine, large horse
and carriage and he and his wife made the trip from Can-
ton, 111., to Knoxville, Tenn., and back without any mishap
or accident. He went by the Hermitage, but learned be-
fore he got there that the old General had died a few weeks
before. But he stopped at the grave with reverence for the
old hero with whom he had fought many battles against
the Indians ; and we may be sure that he paid to his friend
and leader the tribute of his tears.

CHAPTER III.

CIRCUMSTANCES SURROUNDING ANDREW JACKSON'S MAR-
RIAGE. - MY VISIT TO THE NOTED BATTLE GROUNDS AT
NEW ORLEANS. - STORY OF JACKSON'S GREAT VICTORY. -
SOME HIGH OFFICES TO WHICH HE HAD BEEN APPOINTED.
A BRIEF REVIEW OF HIS CHILDHOOD.

comes the story of how it happened that Jackson
was married twice to the same lady. I will give the cir-
cumstances surrounding this remarkable case, as I learned
them from the people of Tennessee when I was there in
1843,. and from his biographies. It was the one event in
his long, noble and useful life that gave his enemies a
chance to blast his good name and that of his pure and love-
ly wife These slanders stirred the tiger in him until noth-
ing but human blood would quench his hate. They were
the cause of most of his many encounters and duels. It is
said that for thirty years he kept his pistols ready for in-
stant use in defense of his wife's good name.

Jackson's wife was a daughter of John Donelson, an
old Virginia farmer, who settled five miles from Nashville
in 1780. eight years before Jackson came to Tennessee.
s

ANBKEW JACKSON. 167

Donelson had a family of sons and daughters, and was a
man of considerable wealth. He was engaged in raising
stock and horses. But one year there came a great drouth
that destroyed crops and pastures, and he was compelled
to move his family and stock to Mercer county, Ky., 200
miles away, where the drouth had been less severe. While
here his daughter Rachel (afterwards Mrs. Jackson) was
married to Lewis Robards, who lived with his widowed
mother, who at that time was keeping a boarding house;
and he took his bride to live with his mother. Boarding
with her were some young men, and it was not long until
Robards, being of a jealous disposition, and his bride being
very handsome, sprightly and jovial, became very jealous
of one of the young men and behaved in such an ungentle-
manly manner that her indignation was aroused and she
wrote to one of her brothers at Nashville to come and take
her home her father and family having returned there.
And so she left Robards ; but she had only been at home
a few weeks when her father, while out surveying,
was killed by the Indians. But Mrs. Robards continued
to live with her mother, and in about six months her hus-
band relented and made many apologies for his conduct
and begged her to come back and live with him. This
she consented to do on his promise that he would there-
after treat her with the confidence and respect due a wife ;
but she refused to return to Kentucky, as it was sparsely
settled and the Indians were very troublesome. So in-
stead of her going to Kentucky he came to live with her at
Nashville at her mother's house. While they were all
living together Gen. Jackson made his first appearance
at Nashville. Mrs. Donelson occupied one of the largest
houses in the place and was keeping boarders, and it so
happened that Jackson became one of her boarders with
another young lawyer from South Carolina. And here
Gen. Jackson first met the charming bride who was to
figure so prominently thereafter in his own life. They
could not very well help getting acquainted while they
were living in the same house and eating at the same table.
It was not long until the green-eyed monster again seized

168 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

Robards, and this time it was Gen. J ackson who he thought
was paying too much attention to his wife. The result
was very scandalous actions on the part of Robards. It
grieved the wife terribly, and Gen. Jackson seriously re-
monstrated with Robards against his cruel and unjust
conduct towards his wife and himself, and Jackson at
once sought another boarding house. In great indignation
the wife again left her husband and took up her abode
with a married sister. Robards soon returned to his
former home in Kentucky, and commenced proceedings
to secure a divorce. The procedure in such cases at that
time will interest the reader. I copy from one of Jack-
son's biographies some of the details :

" In Virginia in the olden time if a man convinced of
his wife's infidelity desired to be divorced from her he
was required to procure from the legislature an act author-
izing an investigation of the charge before a jury and pro-
nouncing the marriage bond dissolved, providing the jury-
shall find her guilty. In the winter of 1790-91 Lewis
Robards of Kentucky, originally part of Virginia, the
husband of Rachel Donelson, appeared before the leisla-
ture of Virginia with a declaration to the effect that his
wife Rachel had deserted him and had lived and was living
in adultery with another man, to wit, Andrew Jackson, an
attorney at law, whereupon the legislature of Virginia
passed an act entitled ' An act concerning the marriage of
Lewis Robards,' of which the following is a copy :

" ' Be it enacted by the general assembly that it shall
and may be lawful for Lewis Robards to sue out of the
office of the supreme court of the district of Kentucky a
writ against Rachel Robards, which writ shall be framed
by the clerk and express the nature of the case, and shall
be published for eight weeks in the Kentucky Gazette,
whereupon the plaintiff may file his declaration in the
same cause, and the defendant may appear and plead to
issue, in which case, or if she does not appear within two
months after such publication, it shall be set for trial by
the clerk on some day in the succeeding court, but may

ANDREW JACKSON. 169

for good cause shown to the court be continued until the
succeeding term.' '

Now after the legislature had passed this act Lewis Ro-
bards did go on with a suit against his wife for a divorce,
and the charge alleged was of desertion and the living in
adultery with Andrew Jackson. The legal notice was
given in the Gazette, and Mrs. Robards had read it, but
she did not attend court or make any defense as she wished
him to get the divorce so she could get rid of him. She
could have proven by scores of witnesses in Nashville that
his allegations were false, for all this time she was living
with her mother or sister, while Jackson was living at a
hotel.

Some months after this a company of Nashville people
was made up to take a trip down the river to Natchez.
Among these were Col. Stark and wife, friends of the
Donelson family, and Mrs. Robards was asked to go with
them, and she did so to visit some friends she had in
Natchez. While there she heard the news that Robards
had secured a divorce from her. As soon as Jackson
heard the news he took a steamboat for Natchez and mar-
ried Mrs. Robards and took her back to Nashville. The
marriage was on a license and in due form of law. After
they had lived happily together for six months the aston-
ishing word came to them that the divorce had just been
granted, that the first report was a mistake. It was really
about two years after Robards had commenced divorce
proceedings before the divorce was granted. At that time
there were no mails being carried between Hardin county,
Kentucky, and Nashville, and it was difficult to get news
from one section to another. Gen. and Mrs. Jackson were
greatly shocked when this news came to them. There
was but one thing to do. All their friends agreed to that.
They must procure another license and be married the
second time according to the due forms of law. This was
done at once. It did not affect their high social position
in Nashville, for all the people knew they had done no
intentional wrong. Thereafter inside of six years Gen.
Jackson was elected one of the trustees of the Davidson

170 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

University with the most eminent ministers and other citi-
zens as his colleagues; then as a member of Tennessee's
first constitutional convention ; then to the lower house of
Congress; then to the United States Senate, and finally
to be a judge of the Supreme Court of Tennessee. All
these high honors and responsibilities came to him within
six years after his marriage to Mrs. Robards, and without
protest or criticism as to that act.

It was not until the opening of the vile presidential
campaign of 1828 that politicians and the newspapers
opened the vials of scandal and detraction upon the old
hero and his pure and noble wife. The old records were
searched and the worst possible construction put upon
every act. As I have said in a former article, there were
no great national issues in that campaign, but the men
were voted for on their records, and this vile abuse was
resorted to defeat the old hero of many wars.

I will now tell of my visit to the battle-ground of New
Orleans, where Gen. Jackson defeated Major Edward
Packingham on the 8th of January, 1815, and will de-
scribe its appearance, and give some of the circumstances of
the battle as I gleaned them from citizens who lived there
in New Orleans at the time.

It was in the fall of 1856 that, with my wife and little
boy Joseph, I took a trip by river to New Orleans, and
thence by the gulf to Texas. We took a steamer at Brown-
ing on the Illinois river to St. Louis, and there took an-
other steamer for the long river trip down the Mississippi
to New Orleans. We stopped there a week, and put up at
the Planters' Hotel. I found that the landlord was an old
hotel keeper and well acquainted with the older residents of
that country, and he found for me a man that was in the
city when the battle was fought, to go with me and show me
the battlefield, and explain the circumstances connected
with it. The battlefield was then about five miles from the
city, and hacks were running there every day at fifty cents
for the trip. So under this guide we had a good view of
the whole situation. A ditch had been dug and breast-

ANDKEW JACKSON. 171

works thrown tip from the Mississippi river a distance of
a mile to a low, swampy land. At the time of the battle
the ditch contained five feet of water, and the breastworks
were from five to six feet high, made from the dirt that
was taken out of the ditch. There was also many cotton
bales used in building the fortification. When I was
there the greater part of the breastworks had been leveled
off and the ditch filled up ; but still there was enough left
to show its location and how it had been constructed. It
appeared that Gen. Jackson had used a great deal of skill
and ingenuity in constructing the fortifications to shield
his men from the fire of their enemies. On the back side
of the breastworks a platform of earth had been con-
structed a foot high and five feet wide, upon which the men
could step to fire over the works and then step down out
of range of the enemies' bullets to reload their guns.

From the best information I could get from old citizens
and other sources, I have no doubt that in this battle the
British forces numbered about 7,000 men, while Jackson's
army numbered 5,000. Gen. Jackson had declared martial
law at ~New Orleans because of the many enemies in the
city, and he had conscripted some thousand Frenchmen,
Creoles, etc., that knew very little about military matters.

One singular thing happened at this battle that is worth
recording. Packingham had caused to be constructed a
supply of ladders and plank platforms to be used in cross-
ing the ditch and climbing the earthworks to Jackson's
stronghold ; but when the battle commenced and Packing-
ham made his assault and came to the ditch, they had for-
gotten to bring along those platforms and ladders. So the
only way they had of crossing the ditch was for one man to
take another on his shoulders and wade through the water
that was five feet deep. While they were crossing the ditch
in this absurd manner hundreds of them were shot down,
and the forces repulsed. A second assault was then made,
but with no better success. Then Gen. Packingham made
a third attempt to rally his men, leading them himself ; but
as he came near the ditch he was shot off his horse, one ball
going through his arm and another piercing his thigh, and

172 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

his horse was killed under him. The British army found
it impossible to endure such a fire, that had slaughtered
them by hundreds at a time, so they gave up the fight and
fled. It was found after the battle that over 2,000 British
soldiers lay prostrate on the battlefield 500 dead and
1,500 wounded. Jackson's loss was six men killed and
seven wounded. It was the greatest victory ever achieved
in the United States, when we take into consideration the
fact the battle was fought in less than an hour.

I can remember away back in the year 1828, when Gen.
Jackson ran for president, that one of the means resorted
to to thrill and inspire the hearts of the people was the war
songs. At that time they had no brass bands or French
horns. The only martial music was the fife and drum, sup-
plemented with patriotic songs. One of these was called
"The Battle of New Orleans." It described the parts that
the Kentucky and Tennessee boys had taken in the battle,
and when sung by a dozen or more strong voices it had a
most animating effect on the old soldiers and the crowds of
people that would gather to listen to them.

When I was on the battlefield I was anxious to get some
relics to carry home with me. While trying to get a spade
to hunt for bullets, etc., I was told that the ground had
been dug over so often that I would find nothing. But I
met a Dutchman who had many relics of the battle. He
had three bullets which he called the "Packingham Balls,"
which he claimed to have found near the spot where Gen.
Packingham was slain. One was a rifle ball, one a large
musket ball and the other a grape shot about the size of a
black walnut. His supposition was that the rifle ball was
the one that had gone through Packingham's arm, that the
musket ball was the one that had gone through his thigh
and that the large ball had killed his horse. I believed that
he was an honest Dutchman and did find the balls on the
battlefield, though I did not take much stock in the tale
about the balls killing Packingham, although it might have
happened. But I thought it would be a good story to tell
when I got home, so I paid $2 for the balls.

After remaining a week at New Orleans we took boat

ANDREW JACKSON. 173

over the gulf for Galveston, Texas, where we remained for
a few days, and then went down to Port Lavaca, where I
bought a span of ponies and a light carriage, and spent the
winter traveling over the country. If a storm, or what is
called in Texas a "norther," came up, we would stop a few
days at some town or farm house until it was over. It so
happened that when we got to Austin, the capital of the
state, on the 8th of January, we found the people were hold-
ing a grand demonstration in honor of Jackson and the vic-
tory of New Orleans. I learned that the 8th of January
was celebrated as a regular holiday in most of the towns and
cities in the state.

Here in California the 8th of January has been observed
as a public holiday since the state was settled. Here in
the City of Oakland we had one of the grandest celebrations
January 8th, 1897, that has ever taken place in the city, in
honor of Gen. Jackson and his great victory. It was the
occasion of the dedication of a fine school house that we had
just completed at a cost of $200,000. We were not able
to procure a hickory pole large enough to bear the national
flag, as hickory timber does not grow wild here as it does in
Illinois. But it happened that a family came out from
Illinois several years ago and brought with them some hick-
ory nuts, one of which was planted in her father's door
yard by a little daughter, and it grew to be a fine tree. On
the day of the dedication the young lady presented this tree
to the school board, and they planted it on the school
grounds in honor of "Old Hickory."

Many eloquent speeches were made on this occasion, but
one of the speakers, after a grand eulogy of Gen. Jackson,
declared that after he was elected president he turned every
whig out of office and put a democrat in his place, and that
no whig could hold an office under his administration. It
was a great mistake. I remember that my father, who was
a strong whig, and did all he could for the election of
Adams, soon after the election of 1828 moved to Havana,
Illinois, when Jackson appointed him postmaster at that
place. He also appointed Abraham Lincoln, another ar-
dent whig, to be postmaster at New Salem, in the place of

174 EA.KLY PIONEEKS AND EVENTS.

Samuel Hill, who was a democrat. I knew of many other
cases in which Gen. Jackson had appointed whigs to office.
The great question with him was, "Is he honest, and is
he capable ? " which had more to do with his appointments
than the question of politics.

The many high and important offices that Gen. Jackson
was elected to and appointed to, and some of them at a time
when he was quite a young man, will show the confidence
and the high regard in which he was held, not only by his
own state, but by the whole nation, for he was elected
State's Attorney, Judge of the Circuit Court, and also
Judge of the Supreme Court of Tennessee, a member of
Congress and a United States Senator, all before he was
thirty-one years of age. In 1824 he ran for president, his
opponents being John Quincy Adams, W. H. Crawford and
Henry Clay, and out of 261 electoral votes cast he got 99,
Adams 84, Crawford 47 and Clay 37, and in the popular
vote he got a majority over Adams of 50,551 votes. Neith-
er of the candidates having received a majority of all the
votes, it was carried into the House, and by some maneuv-
ering Adams was counted in and Jackson counted out. In
1828 he ran again for president against John Quincy
Adams, receiving 178 of the electoral votes to Adams 83,
and a majority over Adams of the popular vote of 158,134.
He ran again in 1832 against Henry Clay, Jackson receiv-
ing 218 of the electoral votes and Clay 49, and a majority
of the popular vote of 157,313.

I must close these sketches of Gen. Jackson with a brief
review of his childhood. I have taken great pains to get
these interesting facts in a reliable form.

Gen. Jackson's parents were Scotch-Irish, coming from
the north of Ireland. His father's name was Andrew
Jackson ; his mother's, Elizabeth Hutchinson. When they
came to America they had two sons, Hugh and Robert.
Mrs. J. had three sisters who came with them to America.
They settled in the Waxhaw settlement on Waxhaw creek,
named for an Indian tribe that occupied that country. It
is now Union county, North Carolina. They settled on

ANDREW JACKSON. 175

a farm as a renter (this was in 1765), and within two
years the father died. The mother then moved
in with her brother-in-law, George McCamis, and
in a week after the father's death Andrew was
born, March 15, 1767. In two months she went with
her children to live with another brother-in-law, Thomas
Crawford, who had married another sister of hers. This
sister was an invalid, and Mrs. Jackson took charge of the
family and lived there most of the time until her death
fifteen years later. Her son Hugh worked for his uncle,
McCamis, until the breaking out of the Revolutionary war,
when he enlisted as a patriot and soon died of the hardships
and privations of army life. Her remaining sons, Robert
and Andrew, were not old enough to go into the army, but
were called into the service, with many other boys of the
settlement, to guard and protect their homes and property
against the British soldiers who were making raids upon
them, destroying property, stealing horses, etc. All the
older men had gone to war, leaving the women and boys to
stand guard about their homes. While Robert and Andrew
and other boys were thus engaged a company of red-coats
came upon them and took them prisoners and marched
them off to Camden, a British garrison forty miles away.
After they had been prisoners a few weeks, Mrs. Jackson,
who was a brave and resolute woman, determined that she
would go to Camden and try to get her sons released. So
she set out for the British garrison on horseback and alone.
When she got to the fort she found her two boys in a terri-
ble predicament. They had had an encounter with one of
the British officers and had been cruelly treated. The
officer had ordered Andrew to clean and black his boots,
which he refused to do, telling the officer that although he
was a prisoner of war, he would not black his boots. The
officer struck him on the head with his sword, when Andrew
threw up his hands to guard off the blow he received a cut
on his arm, and also on the side of his head, the scars of
which he carried to his grave. The officer then ordered
Robert to clean and black his boots ; he also refused to do
it, and the officer knocked him down and beat him terribly.

176 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

So when Mrs. Jackson found her boys in prison, she found
that in addition to their wounds that both had taken the
small-pox, which was raging at a terrible rate in the prison.
She went to the chief officer and plead for their deliverance,
and succeeded in getting them released. She then procured
another horse, and they started home on their forty-mile
ride. When they got within an hour's ride of their home
there came up a dreadful rain that drenched them to the
skin. It very greatly aggravated the small-pox, and Robert
died a few days after she had gotten him home. Andrew
barely escaped death by the kind and careful nursing of
his mother.

Two months after word came to the settlement from
Charleston, S. C., which was then in possession of the Brit-
ish army, that great distress and suffering and sickness
were prevailing among the American prisoners there. A
number of the prisoners were from the Waxhaw settlement,
and among them were several of her nephews. Mrs. Jack-
son was prevailed upon to go with two other ladies to
Charleston with clothing, medicines, etc., for the prisoners,
and also to secure, if possible, their release or exchange.
So she started with her two friends on the long journey of
150 miles, on horseback ; and when they got there they
found that the prisoners were confined on a ship, and that
the ship fever was prevailing among them. So after min-
istering to the wants of the soldiers and doing what they
could for their relief, they started on their journey home.
They stopped one night at a farm house, when Mrs. Jack-
son was taken down with the ship fever contracted while on
the ship, and growing worse, died in a few days, and was
buried in that locality. It was sad news to take back to An-
drew and their friends. Nothing could be done about bring-
ing back her remains, because it was a long distance, and the
weather was hot, and besides that they were poor people.
Andrew, at the time of her death, was fifteen years old, and
his father, mother, brothers and sisters were all dead. But
he continued to live with his uncle, Thomas Crawford, and
attended the school in the log school house. The branches
taught were reading, writing, geography and arithmetic.

ANDREW JACKSON. 177

His mother had often spoken of her wish to educate him for
a Presbyterian minister, and would have tried to do so if
she had lived. He often spoke of his good, Christian
mother, and with much sorrow of her sad death and burial,
for she sacrificed her life for others.

When Gen. Jackson was a member of Congress the first
time he employed two men to go and see if they could find
his mother's grave, and if so, to remove her body to the
place where his father was buried. But the men could not
find her grave. There was no stone to mark the spot, and
the country had undergone many changes, so that there was
no clue to her burial place. It was all the loving and loyal
son could do.

When he was a candidate for the presidency in 1828,
and every vile thing that could be hatched up was told about
him, it was said that his wife came into his room one day
when he was reading a newspaper, and found him in tears.
On her inquiry about what the trouble was, he showed her
a paragraph in the newspaper stating that his mother had
been a washer-woman and filled a pauper's grave. He said
to his wife :

" I can defend your character and mine ; but when they
assail my devoted mother, it almost breaks my heart."

There was one grand and noble trait of character in the
General that drew people to him with hooks of steel. I was
told by men who had been with him in the army how kind
and considerate he was to his soldiers. In one of their long
marches from Natchez to Nashville, a distance of 500 miles
through a wilderness country, the officers, of course, were
on horseback, while the soldiers were afoot. Often the Gen-
eral would fall back to the rear to look after the sick and
disabled soldiers, and it was common for him to dismount
and place some sick or lame soldier on his horse, while he
trudged along on foot with the men day after day through
the miry road, gay and cheerful, inspiring his men with
his splendid courage and unselfishness. It was on this long
and dreadful march that he got the name of "Hickory."
In the first place one of the soldiers remarked : " The gen-
oral is tough." Then another said: "He is as tough as

ITS EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

hickory." Then they commenced to call him " Hickory
Jackson/' and as he advanced in age, they applied to him
the name " Old Hickory," and the honored name followed
him to his death.

In tracing the life of Gen. Jackson we find many things
to admire. In the first place he was born into the world
with a good, strong constitution, with good common-sense,
and with a good back-hone, so that he was always ready to
stand up for the rights of the people. But the great and
crowning glory of his life was his grand and glorious vic-
tory at New Orleans with his Kentucky and Tennessee
militia, over the renowned Major-General Sir Edward
Packingham of the British army with his chosen and well-
drilled soldiers. ISTo doubt the General, in looking over that
battlefield, strewn with the bodies of 2,000 enemies slain
and wounded, while his loss was but five killed and seven
wounded, must have felt something of exultation over the
foe that had so cruelly treated him and his brothers and
caused the death of his beloved mother.

General Jackson's parents were Scotch-Irish Presbyteri-
ans, and he inherited their reverence for religion and for
ministers. He was always a generous contributor to the
church and religious institutions. Previous to his wife's
death he gave her a solemn promise that he would unite
with the church and live a Christian's life. This promise
he complied with about five years before his death. He
united with the Presbyterian church, and was asked to ac-
cept the office of ruling elder, but declined the office. He
said:

" I am too young in the church for such an office. My
countrymen," he said, " have given me high honors, but I
should esteem the office of ruling elder in the church of
Jesus Christ a far higher honor than any I have ever re-
ceived."

He was strongly attached to his slaves, and in his will he
distributed them among his wife's relatives, so that they
should not be sold outside the family. But the time came
for him to die. His faculties were clear and bright up to

ANDREW JACKSON. 179

the hour of his death. He called his family and servants
about his bed and said he wanted to meet them all in
Heaven, black and white. He said he was ready and pre-
pared to go, that death was only the dark pathway opening
into a blessed and endless life. The funeral sermon was
preached by Rev. Dr. Edgar, of Nashville, from the text,
" These are they which came out of great tribulation and
washed their robes white in the blood of the Lamb." It
was the largest funeral ever known in Nashville, except
that of his beloved wife.

This country has had few men honored and beloved by
the masses of the people as was Gen. Jackson. For many
long years will his noble deeds and sacrifices and his sacred
memory be cherished deep down in the hearts of a grateful
country and a generous people.

peter Cartwrigbt

CHAPTER I.

MR. CARTWRIGHT'S SUCCESSFUL EFFORTS TO DEFEAT SLAV-
ERY. HIS REMOVAL TO ILLINOIS IN 1824.

When Peter Cartwright came from Kentucky to Sanga-
mon county in 1823 and bought a farm seven miles west
of Springfield, he found the people greatly agitated (as I
have said in a former letter) over the question whether
Illinois should be a slave or free state. An election to
settle the question was called for the first Monday in
August, 1824. He had left Kentucky to get away from
slavery, and it was natural, with his gQ TT ibP tlvp fHgjvvgit.irm.,
that he should go into the battle for freedom with all his
soul and might. He thoroughly canvassed the counties
of Sangamon and Morgan, making speeches against slavery
in all the churches and schoolhouses, or wherever he could
get an audience.

At that time there were but thirty counties in the state,
and Sangamon and Morgan were the two northern counties
on the east side of the Illinois river. Pike and Fulton
were the only counties on the west side of the river. Ful-
ton was the extreme northern county, taking in Fort Clark
(now Peoria) and Galena and Chicago.

There was at that time in Fulton county a man who
perhaps did as much to defeat slavery as did Mr. Cart-
wright or any other man in Illinois. His name was Os-
sian M. Ross. He thoroughly canvassed the counties of
Fulton and Pike. He was a Quaker, and the Quakers
were bitterly opposed to human slavery. He went into
the conflict with all his might, and never ceased until the
votes were counted and the battle of freedom won. I be-
lieve there was more credit due him and Peter Cartwright

ISO

PETER CART WRIGHT. 181

for carrying the state against slavery than any other two
men in Illinois. Following is the vote on that question.
The vote of Morgan, Sangamon, Pike and Fulton will
show how well they succeeded.

THE VOTE ON SLAVERY.

* For. Against.

Alexander 75 51

Bond 63 240

Clark 32 116

Crawford 134 262

Edgar 3 234

Edwards 186 371

Fayette, .J25^ 121

TTranklin TfO 113

Fulton 5 60

Gallatin 596 133

Greene 134 405

Hamilton 173 86

Jackson ^1SO> 93

"Jefferson ^ 90 43

Johnson 74 74

Lawrence 158 261

Madison 351 58

Marion 45 53

Montgomery 74 99

Monroe 171 196

Morgan "^43 555

Pike 23 261

Pope 275 124

Eandolgh J57^ 184

"Sangambn "To3 722

St. Clair 427 543

Union 213 240

Washington 112 173

Wayne 189 111

White . 355 326

Total . 4950 6822

Majority against slavery 1872

182 EA.BLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

After Mr. Cartwright had finished his fight against
slavery he returned to Kentucky to finish his preparations
for removal to Illinois. In the fall of 1824 he started
with two wagons drawn by horses for his new home in the
wilderness of Illinois. They met with some sad misfor-
tunes on the road. At one time one of the wagonsfcwas
overturned, seriously injuring one of his daughters. While
encamped one night in the great forest a tree fell upon
/another daughter, crushing her to death. They had to
I carry the mangled body twenty miles before they could
1 procure a coffin and give the child decent burial.

When they arrived at their new home Mr. Cartwjight
found that the election had gone to his satisfaction. ffiot-
withstanding slavery had been voted down by the decisive
majority of 1,872 votes, the slavery party was not anni-
hilated. They pretended to believe that their vote had not
all turned out, and hoped that they might win in another
election. They had a large majority in both branches of
the legislature, and were determined to secure another
election. It was true that Edward Coles, an anti-slavery
man, had been elected governor; but there had been four
candidates, and the slavery vote had been divided, causing
Coles to be elected by a small majority^

In the early settlement of Illinois the southern part of
the state was settled first, and mainly by people from the
slave states. These people brought with them their slave
laws, slave prejudices, and many of them also brought their
slaves. They found that many of the staple products of
the South, such as hemp, tobacco and cotton, could be raised
in southern Illinois, and they believed that these products
could not be profitably raised without slave labor. There
was another condition that influenced the people to favor
slavery: About that time a tremendous emigration was
pouring through southern Illinois into Missouri from Vir-
ginia and Kentucky. In the fall of the year every great
road was crowded with these movers in long trains of
teams, and with their negroes, and with plenty of money.
They were the wealthiest and best educated emigrants
from the slave states. The early settlers of Illinois saw

PETEK CAKT WEIGHT. 183

it all and with great envy for Missouri's good fortune.
The lordly emigrant as he passed along with his droves
of negroes and piles of money took malicious delight in
adding to the unrest by pretending to regret the short-
sighted policy of Illinois which excluded him by declaring
against the institution of slavery. This gave the people
of southern Illinois a strong desire to hold another elec-
tion, hoping that slavery might be voted in.

And so the agitation was kept up from year to year.
The same infamous old " black laws " were still on the
statute book, and many negroes were held in slavery, espe-
cially in the southern counties along the Ohio and Missis-
sippi rivers. They were hemmed in by slave states, Ken-
tucky on the southeast and Missouri on the west. So.
the sentiment was strong for slavery. There were but
few men in the legislature who dared oppose these bad
laws or slavery. It would have been a very unpopular if
not dangerous step. Then there was great fear of being
called an " abolitionist," the most odious epithet that in
those times could be applied to a man.

But in 1828 there was to be an election for representa- /
tives, and the friends of free territory prevailed upon Mr. *
Cartwright to become a candidate, and he was elected a
without much opposition from the northern counties. He
believed that he could for a few months serve his God and
his country as acceptably in the general assembly as in
preaching the gospel.

By this time the northern counties were settling up with
people from the East, and the tide turned forever against
the friends of slavery. Mr. Cartwright with the help of
other members of the legislature was able to have some of
the infamous " black laws " repealed and excellent laws
enacted in their stead. It was a grand and noble work.*
I may have more to say on this subject in a later sketch.

184 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

CHAPTER II.

MR. CARTWKIGHT AS A GREAT PREACHER AND A GREAT

ORGANIZER. THE JACKSONVILE ORDINANCE AND HOW

MR. CARTWRIGHT ASSISTED IN ITS ENFORCEMENT.

When Peter Cartwright came to Illinois in 1824, and
settled seven miles east of Springfield, at what was after-
wards known as Pleasant Plains, he found the country very
sparsely settled. Sangamon county at that time extended
north as far as the northern part of the state, the settle-
ments were few and far between and there was not a church
within the boundaries of the county. Springfield was a
small village, and the only place they had for public wor-
ship was a small frame school house, but in about a year
after Mr. Cartwright came to that place the Methodist and
Presbyterian congregations joined in building a small brick
church, which was the first brick building erected in Spring-
field. The two congregations used this building alternate-
ly for two years, when the Methodists sold out their interest
in the property and built for themselves a frame church
much larger in size.

Mr. Cartwright possessed too much of a missionary spir-
it, however, to settle down in one place. He looked upon
the whole state of Illinois as his field of labor, and would
travel from place to place, organizing a church and Sunday
school wherever he could find a few families gathered to-
gether, and preaching in the homes of the people and in log
school houses. But his great forte in carrying on his mis-
sionary and evangelical work was his campmeetings. He
would hold ten-day campmeetings in every part of the
country, and people would flock from miles around to at-
tend them.

Mr. Cartwright was not only a great preacher, but it
might be said of him, as of Lincoln, that he was a born
leader. He was a great organizer, and had held the office
of presiding elder ever since he was twenty-two years old.

PETER C ART WEIGHT. 185

He had a most excellent control over his members, and
would allow no drones in his camp. In those primitive
times it was not considered necessary that a teacher of re-
ligion should be a scholar. It was thought to be his busi-
ness to preach from a knowledge of the Scriptures and the
guiding and controlling influence of the Holy Spirit.
Their wonderful success at those meetings might be attrib-
uted to the earnestness and zeal with which they picturedl <{ ^^
the blessings of Heaven and the awful torments of the wick- 1
ed in fire and brimstone. They believed with certainty
that they saw the souls of wicked men rushing headlong to
perdition, and they stepped forward to warn and to save
with all the self-devotion of a generous man who risks his
own life to save that of a drowning neighbor. And to these
earnest, Christian people are we indebted for the spread of
the protestant religion through Illinois at that early day.
At many of those campmeetings there would be from 200
to 300 conversions.

In 1832 the democratic party again brought out Peter
Cartwright for the legislature. He was a farmer as well
as a preacher, and was very popular with the farmers.
He had also given good satisfaction in the legislature, to
which he was elected in 1,89^ having been instrumental in
repealing several of the obnoxious laws which had disgraced I
the state, and the people wanted to send him back. This ||
time he defeated Abraham Lincoln. When he was in the
legislature he had two prohibition laws enacted. One
was that no saloon or drinking house should be permitted
within one mile of Jacksonville, and was known as the
" Jacksonville Ordinance." The Jacksonville college had
been established, and was then the only college in the state.
The other prohibitive law was that no saloon or drinking
house should be erected or permitted to run within one
mile of a campmeeting. Mr. Cartwright had an oppor-
tunity to assist in enacting this latter law in Fulton county
in 1833. He had erected a campmeeting on the west side
^of Canton, near where the old Methodist church stood.
There was then a handsome grove of timber standing there.
They had got their shed and preacher's stand put up and

186 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

everything in order for the meeting when a man from Can-
ton set up a huckster's stand with cigars, tobacco, and all
kinds of ardent spirits within a few rods of the camp-
grounds. Mr. Cartwright went to him and told him he
would have to move his drinking establishment, as it was
against the law to sell liquor within a mile of a campmeet-
ing. The man told him he had plenty of friends to back
him and he would continue to sell, so Cartwright swore out
a warrant for his arrest and had him taken before Esquire
Stillman for trial. A young lawyer in Canton defended
the prisoner, while Cartwright prosecuted the case. The
court imposed a fine of $10, which the huckster said he
would not pay, so the necessary papers were made out com-
mitting him to the county jail. But the man defied the
constable, telling him that he could not find men enough in
Canton to take him. The constable was completely cowed,
as he was afraid of the man's friends who had promised to
protect him, but Mr. Cartwright told the constable to sum-
mons him and two of his church members and they would
take him. One of the churchmen went into the woods and
cut a stout hickory cane for each of the three, and they
hoisted the man on a horse and started for Lewistown. He
believed that his friends would rescue him from the officers
and kept looking back every few miles to see if they were
coming, but they never made their appearance, and when
they got in sight of Lewistown the man gave up all hope
and paid his fine. They all turned back for Canton, but
that put a stop to setting up saloons near campmeetings in
Fulton county. At the close of this campmeeting Mr. Cart-
wright reported that ninety persons had been soundly con-

Canton.

PETER CARTWRIGHT. 1ST

CHAPTER III.

THE NAME OF PETER CARTWRIGHT FAMILIAR THROUGH-
OUT THE STATE. HIS EFFORTS TO DRIVE OUT THE MOR-
MONS. GRAND OVATION TENDERED HIM IN 1869.

HIS LABORS AT EIGHTY-SIX YEARS OF AGE. AN INCIDENT

OF HIS LAST MISSIONARY TOUR.

The career of Peter Cartwright has been one of the
most remarkable and eventful known in the history of the
great northwest. There was scarcely a town or village or
city in Illinois where the name of Peter Cartwright was
not familiar. He had been for sixty-five years an ef-
fective itinerant Methodist preacher, not having lost six
months' labor in that long period of time. During that
period he served as presiding elder fifty years. He had
wonderful powers of oratory, and often at his campmeetr J
ings there would be 200 to 300 conversions under his
preaching.

He first visited that section of country between the
Illinois and Mississippi rivers in 1827. He crossed the
Illinois river at Beardstown, and traveled across the coun-
try to Atlas on the Mississippi river, that town then being
the county seat of Pike county. He there found some
ten or twelve families, and among them were three
brothers, William, John and Leonard Ross. They had
laid out the town of Atlas. They came from the state of
New York. They had bought up considerable land in
that vicinity. Mr. Cartwright stopped with William
Ross over night and attended a campmeeting that was
held ten miles from Atlas, which was the first campmeet-
ing held in Pike county. The same fall he held a camp-
meeting in Schuyler county, near Rushville. He came
into Fulton county, stayed at my father's house in Lewis-
town over night, and preached that evening in the log
courthouse at Lewistown. He went from there to Canton,

188 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

where he attended a campmeeting that was held in a beau-
tiful grove of timber on the west side of Canton. That
was the second campmeeting that was held in the county.
After the campmeeting was over he took a trip up into the
Rock river country that was then settled with Indians.
His great and sympathetic heart went out for the good
and welfare of the poor Indians, as well as for the white
people. He believed that civilizing and Christianizing
them was far better than fighting them. He was instru-
. .mental in having his church establish a mission among
/KJ V/the Pottawattomie Indians, which was located on Hock
I river; and it might truthfully be said that he was the first
missionary that labored among those wild Indians. He
|was appointed superintendent of the mission and con-
ducted it with much ability until the Indians were driven
out of the country during the Black Hawk war.

Mr. Cartwright was always in politics a democrat of
the Andrew Jackson stamp. He was twice elected a mem-
ber of the Illinois legislature, his opponent at one time
being Abraham Lincoln, who ran on the Whig ticket.
That party being in the majority in his district at the
time, Mr. Lincoln was elected by a small majority.

Mr. Cartwright was a descendant of a loyal and patriotic
ancestry, his father having served for two and one-half
years in the War of the Revolution for American Inde-
pendence; and when the War of the Rebellion in the
south took place, and Mr. Lincoln called for volunteers,
Mr. Cartwright rushed to Springfield and hoisted the
American flag on the top of the Methodist church in that
city, and used all of his influence to put down the Rebel-
lion.

Mr. Cartwright, who had labored so heroically when he
first came to Illinois to prevent the planting of the insti-
tution of slavery on the soil of that state, found, after he
had lived in the state about twenty years, that an effort
was being made to plant another institution over the state
which he regarded as being almost as pernicious and vile
as that of slavery, and that was Mormonism, which in-
cluded polygamy, and his righteous indignation was

PETEK CAKTWBIGHT. 189

aroused to the highest pitch. For the Mormons, who had
been driven out of Missouri for their bad conduct, had
crossed the Mississippi and had spread themselves over
several of the counties in Illinois, and their preachers and
elders traveled through every town and neighborhood and
were very zealous in propagating their doctrines and win-
ning over converts to their religion ; and they also took an
active part in the politics of the times, and at all elections
they cast their votes as a unit ; and in some of the counties
they had elected some of their elders to seats in the legis-
lature and to fill county offices. So Peter Cartwright got
after the Mormons with all the power and might that he
possessed, and did much to check their pernicious and mis-
chievous conduct in many localities.

After Mr. Cartwright had been elected the fiftieth time
as a presiding elder, his church, which convened in con-
ference at Quincy in 1868, passed a resolution that at
their next conference, that was to be held at Lincoln in
1869, that a grand ovation, or a kind of jubilee, should
be given him in honor of his fifty years' service as presid-
ing elder. At that conference a very large number of
ministers were present the largest that had ever before
assembled in Illinois. Also a number of ministers came
from other states to pay their homage and respect to the
grand old veteran. Rev. I. P. Newman came all the way
from Washington City to see him. Many eloquent
speeches were made, many letters of congratulations were
read, and many handsome and costly presents were given
him. Among the letters read were notable ones from Ex-
Governors Richard Yates and R. J. Oglesby. In Gov-
ernor Yates' letter, among the many good things he had to
say about the old elder, was the following :

" During the war, when the governor of the state need-
ed the support of all good men in the union cause, he felt
cheered and strengthened by the earnest approval and
strong influence of Peter Cartwright."

190 EARLY PIONEEKS AND EVENTS.

In Gov. Oglesby's letter he said :

" For as long as I can remember, the name of Peter Cart-
wright has been a household word in our western country.
Bold, honest, earnest and untiring, he has stood on the
frontier of advancing civilization to proclaim the truth of
God and history. It is the completion of his semi-centen-
nial eldership of your church. A jubilee such as this can
come to few men. Few are favored with such length of
life in which to do good for mankind."

At the jubilee conference Gov. Oglesby sent to the com-
mittee a beautiful and magnificent chair with his compli-
ments, as follows:

" I will thank you to present the chair sent to your care
to Elder Cartwright, and request that he will accept it as a
testimonial of friendship and respect, upon which, in the
weary days of an honorable old age, he may occasionally be
\seated to rest from his labors.

" E. J". OGLESBY."

At the time of the jubilee conference Elder Cartwright
was eighty-four years of age, though he lived to his eighty-

I seventh year, and his wife lived to the age of eighty-six.
They lived together as husband and wife for sixty-four
years. They had nine children (two sons and seven daugh-
ters), fifty grandchildren, thirty-seven great-grandchildren
and one great-great-grandson. Three of their daughters
married traveling Methodist Episcopal ministers, two of
whom had been presiding elders ; and all of their children,
and many of their grandchildren and great-grandchildren,
were members of the Methodist Episcopal church.

After the jubilee conference was over, in 1869, Mr. Cart-
wright concluded that he would retire from further labors
and spend the balance of his days with his wife on their
beautiful farm at Pleasant Plains where they had lived for
forty years. The old elder stood it bravely for six months,
and then he became restless and uneasy, and his old pro-
pensity and desire for preaching and the distribution of

PETER CARTWRIGHT. 191

religious books and tracts came back upon him so
that he could stand leisure and idleness no longer. So he
packed a carpet-sack with religious literature and started
off on a missionary tour. He traveled through several of
the states and territories, and on his return he said the fol-
lowing :

" I will furnish a brief statement of my labors during
this year. I have dedicated eight churches, preached at
seventy-seven funerals, addressed eight schools, baptized
twenty adults and fifty children, married five couples, re-
ceived fifteen into the church on probation and twenty-five
into full connection; have raised $25 missionary money;
have donated $20 for new churches, written 112 letters,
received in donations $50, and for my lectures and sermons
$700 ; for traveling expenses $650, and sold $200 worth of
books."

ISTow that was certainly a good account of stewardship
for a year's labor by a man that was eighty-six years of age.

Mr. Cartwright, on his return from his last year's mis-
sionary tour, had many circumstances and incidents of very
great interest to relate, and I will relate one of them : He
had taken his seat in the cars one day when a lady came and
introduced herself to him, stating that he had baptized her
when she was a child, and that then she had a large family,
who were with her in the cars ; that they were moving to a
distant part of the country, away from church privileges,
and she wanted him to baptize her family. When the con-
ductor came into the car he told him that this lady desired
him to baptize her children, and asked him if he would
allow him the privilege. The conductor told him that
there were a great many passengers on the cars who were
in a hurry to get through, and he could not stop the train.
He told the conductor that if he would grant him the priv-
ilege he could baptize them if his train was . running at
ightning speed. The conductor told him to go ahead ; and
when water was brought he baptized the family and sent
them on their way rejoicing ; and he would gladly have bap-

192 EARLY PIONEEBS AND EVENTS.

tized the whole car-load if they had been fit subjects for
baptism.

There are few ministers, if any, that have lived in the
last century that can show such a record of long and faith-
ful service in the Christian faith ; and for many long years
will his noble deeds and sacrifices be remembered and his
sacred memory be cherished deep down in the hearts of a
grateful country and a generous people. It would be right
and proper that a monument should be erected to his sacred
memory, the same as has been done over the grave of the
noble Lincoln.

MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY BRIEFLY SKETCHED.

MY ANCESTORS, THE ROSS AND LEE FAMILIES. THEIR DE-
SCENDANTS AND SOME OF THEIR DEEDS. THE JOURNEY

OF MY FAMILY FROM NEW YORK TO ILLINOIS. SOME OF

MY EA.RLY PERSONAL ADVENTURES. MY MARRIAGE TO

.TANE R. KIRKPATRICK, JANUARY 1ST, 1840. MY PER-
SONAL WORK IN THE EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF THE
COUNTRY. THE OFFICES HELD AND MY WORK AS A DEL-
EGATE TO THE NATIONAL PROHIBITION CONVENTION IN

THE YEAR 1884. THE SIXTY YEARS OF MY MEMBERSHIP

IN THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.

In closing my pioneer history of Fulton county, I
thought that it would be proper and right for me to give a
short biographical sketch of my own life and also of some
of my ancestors, as some of my children and grandchildren
and great-grandchildren might have the curiosity to know
something about their genealogy, and where their ancestors
came from, and I will therefore give such genealogy as far
as I have been able to trace it back to the Ross and the Lee
families.

My great-grandfather, Zebulon Ross, came from Scot-
land to America, and settled in Dutchess county, New York,
in the year 1728, and died in the same county at the age of
ninety years. He had a son, Joseph Ross, who was mar-
ried to Abigail Lee, a daughter of Thomas Lee. Thomas
Lee was a soldier in the Revolutionary War, and it was
after him that the Lee part of my name was given me,
which is Harvey Lee Ross.

My grandmother, Abigail Lee Ross, came to Illinois
in 1824, and died at my father's house in Havana, Illinois,
in 1834. T have often heard her tell of her father, Thomas
Lee, being a soldier in the Revolutionary War. Thomas
Lee's ancestors came from England to America about the

193

194 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

middle of the seventeenth century. There were two
branches of the Lee family, one of which branches settled
in the state of New York and the other in the state of Vir-
ginia. Both branches came from the same original stock.
Their ancestors had held positions of honor and trust in
the old country, and some of those who settled in New
York and Virginia occupied prominent places in the col-
onial history of America, in the state legislatures, and in
the councils of the nation. Joshua Lee, brother of Thomas
Lee, was for many years a member of the New York State
Senate. One of the Virginia branch, Richard Henry Lee,
drew up and submitted to Congress the resolution of June
7th, 1776, declaring that the United Colonies of America
are and ought to be free and independent states ; that they
absolved themselves from all allegiance to the British
Crown, and that all political connection between them and
Great Britain is and ought to be totally absolved, which
resolution was adopted by the Continental Congress. Both
Richard Henry Lee and his brother, Francis Lightfoot Lee,
were members of the Continental Congress and signers of
the Declaration of Independence.

Thomas Lee, the father of Abigail Lee, was born in
Fishkill, New York, November 15th, 1739, and died at
Penn Yan, New York, January 22nd, 1814. His wife,
Mattie Sherman, was born in 1743, and died October 14th,
1833.

Thomas Lee and Mattie Sherman were married in 1760,
and had ten children. Their oldest daughter, Abigail Lee,
was born in 1760, and married Joseph Ross.

Joseph Ross and Abigail Lee had born to them the fol-
lowing children : Joseph, Ossian M., Matthias, Thomas L.,
John N., Eliza, Maria and Sallie.

Ossian M. Ross Avas born in Dutchess county, New York,
August 16th, 1790, and died at Havana, Illinois, in 1837.
His wife, Mary "\Vinans, was born in New Jersey, April
1st, 1793, and'died at Peoria, Illinois, in 1875. Ossian
M. Ross and Mary Winans were married in Seneca county,
Now York, July 7th, 1811. There was born to them the

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR. 195

following children : Lewis W., Harriet M., Harvey Lee,
Leonard F., Lucinda C. and Pike C. Ross.

The services of Thomas Lee in assisting in the establish-
ment of American independence during the war of the
Revolution were as follows : He was second lieutenant of
Captain Jack Rosekrance's company, Col. Jack Holmes,
fourth regiment. New York Continental line, 28th of
June, 1775 ; promoted first lieutenant, August 3rd, 1775.
He was captain of the eighth company, fifth regiment, New
York Continental line, commanded by Col. Louis Du Bois,
November 21st, 1776'; resigned May 19th, 1778. He was
also captain in Col. Zepharriah Platt's regiment of New
York Associated Exempts, October 19th, 1779. He was
also captain in Col. Louis Du Bois' regiment of New
York militia, July 1st, 1780. (References, pages 140,
231, 257, 285 and 529 of Vol. 1, "New York in
the Revolution," or Vol. 15 of the published " Docu-
ments Relating to the Colonial History of the State of New
York," published by Reed, Parsons & Co., Albany, New
York, 1887. Also "page 261 of " Heitman's Register of
Officers of the Continental Army," published by H. B.
Heitman, at Washington, D. C.) Captain Thomas Lee's
services in the Continental army were equivalent to ser-
vice in the regular army of to-day.

In regard to my own life, I will say that I was born in
Seneca county, New York, October 10th, 1817, and came
with my parents to what is now known as Fulton county,
Illinois, in 1821. We came down the Ohio river and up the
Mississippi and Illinois rivers in a keel boat. The country
at that time was a vast wilderness, inhabited only by
Indians and abounding with wild animals. It was several
years after we came to Illinois before the country became
sufficiently settled to establish schools, and I had little
opportunity in the years of my youth to obtain an education.
What education I did get was obtained at the little log
schoolhouses, though in 1836, when I was nineteen years of
age, my father sent me to Illinois College, at Jacksonville,
Illinois. I had attended college scarcely a year when my
father died. He had been engaged in extensive business

196 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

enterprises, and in consequence of his death I was obliged to
leave school and come home and take charge of my mother's
business, which put an end to my college life. When I
entered Illinois College I took in with me as college chum,
William II. Heriidon, who for many years was the law
partner of Abraham Lincoln, and who was the author of the
book entitled " Life of Abraham Lincoln, by W. H. Hern-
don." I have had something to say of this book in my
sketch of the early life of Lincoln.

My father was engaged for many years in farming, and
in the mercantile business, and in trading with the Indians,
and the early part of my life was spent on the farm, in the
store, and in trading with the Indians. I would often
take long trips into the country, far away from any white
neighbors, in company with Indian traders, whom my
father kept employed, and I then learned to speak the
Indian language quite well. I at a very early age learned
the use of firearms, and was very often out hunting and
trapping, as the country in those times abounded in wild
game. Great droves of deer and large flocks of wild tur-
keys could be found everywhere. I have shot wild turkeys
when but seven years of age, and have killed deer when
twelve years old. I can remember catching eight wolves in
steel traps set around the carcass of one dead horse, when I
was but twelve years of age. In 1832, when I was fifteen
years of age, I carried the mail on horseback, once a week,
from Springfield to Monmouth, Illinois, the distance being
about 135 miles. I frequently had to swim my horse over
streams of water three or four times a day, there being no
bridges, with the mailbag strapped across my shoulders to
keep the mail from getting wet. I will mention one of my
adventures. I was traveling from Monmouth to Knox-
ville, the distance being twenty miles, and not a house was
there between the two villages. A dark and rainy night
came on, when I was ten miles from Knoxville, and when I
had reached the place where the city of Galesburg now
stands the grass was very high in the road, and all of a sud-
den I heard a hungry pack of wolves set up a tremendous
howling right behind my horse, and from the noise

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR. 197

they made I supposed that the whole country was alive
with wolves, so I applied the whip to my horse, and was not
long in getting to Knoxville, and I probably made as good
time on horseback as the railroad trains are making at the
present time. In the year 1833, when I was sixteen years
of age, I took a trip from Havana, in Mason county, Illi-
nois, to what was called the " Lead Mine Country " in the
northwestern part of Illinois, a distance of about 225 miles.
The greater part of the road ran through an unbroken
wilderness. In many places the white settlers were from
fifteen to twenty-five miles apart. There were many deep
and dangerous streams of water to cross, and it was cer-
tainly a long and dangerous trip for a boy to take alone
and on horseback. I found many Indians on the road, and
sometimes stayed with them over night, and always found
them kind and friendly. The cause of my taking the
trip at that time was this: My uncle, Joseph Ross, had
some three years before gone to the lead mines, taking with
him his only child, my cousin Ossian, a boy about five years
of age. My uncle was taken sick and died, leaving this boy
with strangers, and no one to look after him, and so I went
there and brought him home with me. He at the time of
this trip was only eight years of age. I was some twenty
days in making the trip, and we got home all in good shape.
One of the first business enterprises I engaged in after I
became of age was to purchase an interest in a steamboat,
called the Navigator, which ran from St. Louis, Missouri,
to La Salle on the Illinois river. I held the position on
her of steamboat clerk. After running on her for a year, I
sold out my interest, and then took a wife. I was married
on the 1st day of January, 1840, to Jane R. Kirkpatrick
at Canton, Illinois. Upon our marriage we went to
Havana, Illinois, ~ and there kept the Havana Hotel, and
also the ferry across the Illinois river, and we engaged in
farming and stockraising. I was later appointed post-
master at Havana, Illinois, by President Martin Van
Buren. In 1844 I removed to and settled on a farm of
forty acres adjoining the town of Vermont in Fulton
countv, Illinois, and as I had never learned a trade, nor

/ 7 t

198 EARLY PIONEERS AND EVENTS.

studied for any profession, I had to rely on my hands and
head for a living in the world. I settled down on my lit-
tle farm and went to work, and planted out a fine orchard,
which in after years yielded me from eight to ten thousand
bushels of fruit a year. I added to my little farm from
time to time, until I had a farm of 400 acres, all well im-
proved. I also engaged in buying lands and improving
them, and selling them to such emigrants as came to the
country and wished to purchase improved farms. I con-
tinued in that business until I had became the purchaser
and had disposed of six farms in Fulton county and four-
teen farms in McDonough county, Illinois, and those farms
are at the present time among the very best in those
two counties. I have good reason to believe that I have
had a greater number of acres of land broken up and put
in cultivation than any other man that has ever lived in
McDonough county. I only mention these facts to show
that I have not been an idler or drone in the great hive of
human progress, but have taken some part in helping to de-
velop the great resources of the country.

My principal occupation through life has been that of a
farmer, although I engaged in the mercantile business in
connection with my farming operations for about ten years.
I have never been an office seeker, and have had but little
desire to hold office, although I have held a few small offices.
I have held the office of town councilman, town treasurer,
supervisor, justice of the peace and postmaster. I was
twice elected treasurer and director of a railroad. I have
usually voted the Democratic ticket, but when I came to
California, in 1881, I attended the Democratic State Con-
vention, and found that a large majority of the delegates
to the convention were saloonkeepers and wholesale liquor
dealers, and that the prominent questions which came
before the convention were the repeal of the Sunday law,
which was then the law of the state of California, and the
enactment of laws in the interests of liquor dealers, so I
left the Democratic party and joined the Prohibition party.
And at the State Prohibition Convention, in 1884, I was
selected as a delegate to the National Prohibition Conven-

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR. 199

tion that was held in the city of Pittsburgh in 1884, at
which convention the Hon. John P. St. John was nom-
inated for president. At that convention twenty-eight
states and three territories were represented by 465 dele-
gates. It was at this convention that I first had the oppor-
tunity and the pleasure of seeing and hearing that grand
and noble lady, Miss Frances E. Willard. She placed in
nomination for president John P. St. John, and on that
occasion she made one of the most eloquent and powerful
speeches that was heard during the convention. I felt a
little honored in being chosen with her on the committee
that drafted the platform and resolutions which were
unanimously adopted by the convention. I have been a
member of some temperance organization for over half a
century. I have never indulged in the use of liquor nor
tobacco in any form, and during the more than eighty years
of my life I do not think that I ever had to exceed more
than five days of sickness, and I attribute my good health
and length of years very materially to abstaining from the
use of liquor and tobacco. My wife and I lived together
lacking but three days of fifty-eight years. There were
born to us six children, four sons and two daughters. Our
first child, Ossian, died when eighteen months old. All my
other children are married and have families. They are
Harriet S. Hall, Frank W. Boss, Mary F. Childs, George
C. Ross and Joseph L, Ross. I have twelve grandchildren
and four great-grandchildren. I have been a member of
the Presbyterian church for sixtyyears. Iwas convertedun-
der the preaching of the Rev. Dr. David Nelson, at a Pres-
byterian campmeeting held near the town of Canton, Illi-
nois, in 1838. I first joined the Presbyterian church, at
Canton, Illinois, in 1838. I have been a member of the
Presbyterian church at Vermont, Illinois, and also of the
Presbyterian church at Macomb, Illinois. I held the
office of presiding elder in each of those churches, and have
represented each of them in presbytery. I am at the pres-
ent time a member of the First Presbyterian church of
Oakland, California, which has a membership of over
thirteen hundred.

Enfc.

o

O

-

s o

bo

o

a, .s

< < L) U